Thomas Gould (Cork North-Central, Sinn Fein)

I can safely say that the Minister has just given a big spiel there, the same as the previous Minister did last year and the year before that. Nothing the Minister has outlined today will tackle dereliction. He talks about CPO activations. Local authorities will not take out CPOs because they are too complicated. They do not have the staffing, the resources or the money. I have looked at the Minister's 105- or 107-page plan. There is a paragraph on CPOs to tackle dereliction, but no funding and no resources. It is the same old, same old from the Minister.

He talks about local government, the local authorities and the planning authorities getting more staff. Why are the local authorities not tackling dereliction? I will tell you why. It is because the Minister is not giving them the staff or the money. The buck stops with him.

I will ask the Minister once more, as I asked his predecessor. I will walk the streets of Dublin with him tonight to look at the dereliction and the blight on the communities. It is not just Dublin but also Cork and towns and villages. The dereliction is everywhere. There is nothing in the Minister's housing plan to tackle it.

See this speech in context