John Cummins (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Cathaoirleach. The Department must put in quick underwritten finance to local authorities to allow them to actively pursue the acquisition of properties. The local authorities in Cork and Galway mentioned that they have more than 50 and 36 interested applications. If every local authority acquired 50 properties where notices to quit are in place between now and the end of March then we would go a long way towards resolving some of the issues in this space. We must also ramp up delivery through schemes such as repair and lease, buy and renew and compulsory purchase orders, CPOs.

I feel like I sound like a broken record because I have said umpteen times here and at committee meetings that the Department must put targets in place for local authorities across all of these delivery streams. Targets have not been identified yet and I do not know why there is a resistance to doing so. Local authorities will continue to fail to deliver under those streams unless ambitious targets are put in place. I ask the Minister of State to convey what I have said and consider the measures that we have put forward as Oireachtas Members here and at committee meetings.