Susan O'Keeffe (Labour)

I have two questions for the Minister of State. On unfinished estates, I wonder what has happened to those who left them unfinished. Obviously, some of those involved are bankrupt, but I suspect that is not the case across the board. Certainly, in my area there is much local knowledge of what happened, for example, that money was put aside and then re-channelled into another account. I wonder whether that is an issue the Government should be addressing, as well as the practicalities which I appreciate the Department has begun to address.

On regeneration, recently I visited Limerick and took an extensive tour of the regeneration project with its chief executive, Mr. Brendan Kenny, with some Members from Sligo. It is an interesting exercise, as no doubt the Minister of State is aware far better than I am, given that she is from Limerick, but it was clear how slow and difficult regeneration was and how, ultimately, it was not merely about rebuilding houses. I understand the Minister of State has announced the establishment of an independent regeneration office. I would be grateful if she would confirm this, what its function will be, specifically in relation to, say, the Cranmore regeneration project which has been in the offing for quite some time for various reasons. I appreciate that there are lessons that we, in Cranmore, could learn from the project in Limerick to ensure some of the errors made there are not repeated. I pay tribute to the work done by Mr. Kenny. I note that there has been criticism of the slowness of the project, but when one sees the complexity of the work involved, some of the achievements in difficult circumstances are worthy of mention.