Thomas Gould (Cork North-Central, Sinn Fein)

Today is World Vacant Homes Day and in a minute members of the Government will be outside having their photograph taken. The hypocrisy of that is unbelievable. Things are so bad that Fine Gael backbenchers introduced Private Members' legislation in July to try to force the Minister's hand on the matter of CPOs being used. Some Government backbenchers do not believe or have faith in the Ministers.

I invite the Minister and Minister of State to walk the streets of Dublin, Cork or Waterford with me and look at the dereliction. It is unbelievable. The Minister of State talked about local authorities having a part to play. Where are the support, funding and staff for local authorities? He spoke about reorganising. Reorganising is only bluff. If he really wants local authorities to start using CPOs, he will give them the money, staff and authority to do it.

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