Ged Nash
Louth · Labour Party · Ireland
“However, it is a rich country that has a problem understanding that it is now sustainably rich. Those of us in opposition will, of course, say that this country needs to do better, and it can.”
“On the one hand, it is legitimate for an Opposition party to critique the economic model day in, day out. I do it myself all of the time, and we all know that Ireland can do better. However, at the same time, is that kind of critique helping to persuade those whom we need to persuade into a new Ireland? I am not so sure that it is.”
“There will be fiscal and financial implications for this State in that transition. There is an obligation on us, insofar as we can, to properly interrogate and consider those implications and to be upfront about them.”
“No, it did not, but let us not exaggerate its impact on the Irish economy. It is good and it had an impact, but was there a causal relationship? I am not so sure. The jury is out on that. However, is the Good Friday Agreement a good thing and good for our economy? Of course, it is. Did the guns fall silent in the North?”
“We are not good at describing what those accommodations will be or what that relationship with the UK will be, whether economically, socially, politically, culturally or otherwise. It is a relationship that will have to be maintained. It will look very different as we approach a new Ireland.”
“That was a very different prospect when the vast majority, if not all, of East German citizens wanted to become part of a united German polity. As we know, that is not the case on this island. We need to be careful about how we approach that.”
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“Again, it is all well and good having excellent legislation on paper, but the test is the enforcement of its provisions at all times and in all cases, with no exceptions. With some of the new provisions, especially the provision in relation to specifying defined acts of penalisation of criminal acts, there appears to be very little familiarity about these provisions in the agencies responsible for prosecuting them and how they are actually properly applied. There may very well be resource issues in this regard, but it is important, when legislation is enacted in this House, that the authorities responsible for prosecuting and processing complaints in that regard know what they are doing, engage properly with complainants and that justice is done.”
“This seems to me to be an all too familiar occurrence. There is also the way this can be used as a means to effectively blacklist someone and ensure the person does not work again. All of this just serves to illustrate how far things can go and the impact on those who make protected disclosures when the system decides to circle the wagons. Some significant strides were made in the 2022 Act, and that was acknowledged. Some amendments I and colleagues in Sinn Féin and other parties tabled should have been adopted by the Government at the time. Unfortunately, they were not and I feel that we will be revisiting that. The proof of the pudding, as the saying goes, will be in the eating.”
“Again, this has been raised with me by Noel McGree, who has also raised connected concerns over the application of the Carltona principle and the real-world potential for cases to be handled and processed without complete ministerial knowledge, and in situations - this is important - where independence may be called into question. This is a matter that requires vigilance. A Deputy mentioned earlier the cases of protective disclosures made by members of the Defence Forces Justice Alliance. Those very same issues that were raised involve concerns being expressed over the independence of those who may be handling complaints and potential conflicts of interest. This is something that we need to be alive to. We are also well aware of the practice of whistleblowers being forced out of their work on grounds of ill health.”
“This takes me to comments made on the record of the House on 12 November 2025 by the Taoiseach in respect of the handling of protected disclosures. In essence, he appears to have claimed that there is somehow a form of prohibition of some description on a Minister reading a protected disclosure that was duly submitted to the Minister. The claim seems to have been made that he has legal advice to that effect. This is arrant nonsense and it would be useful and in the public interest if the Taoiseach clarified his comments. The functions of Ministers receiving a relevant protected disclosure and what happens to that disclosure next are clearly laid out and, I would hope, well understood by Ministers.”
“We want enforcement and citizens having the confidence that when they follow their conscience and do what is right and report wrongdoing, there is a well-resourced system that sees disclosures that are made in good faith, through the correct channels and in compliance with the letter and spirit of the Act, processed properly. There should be a system where regular communication is made with the complainant, where disclosures are adjudicated fairly and where things actually demonstrably change as a result of that risk being taken. This is a system that rests and depends on the trust and confidence of the public. This is why there is an onus on those who are in positions of responsibility to be unequivocal and unambiguously clear on what they say in the Dáil and to not mislead, however unintentional that may be.”
“The scale and extent of the apparent campaigns of reprisals experienced by many who have gone public and have spoken about the toll and upheaval they and their families have experienced, once they blew the whistle and were entitled to the full protection of the Act but were failed, must not go unnoticed by anyone. Going back to Noel McGree, he and I agree, having discussed this last night and we had email exchanges, that the legislation we have does, in theory, provide strong protections for whistleblowers. It is in the implementation where the problems arise. We can have all the fine legislation and regulation in the world, but if bodies are not resourced and if the law is not enforced, then this brings the system into disrepute. Well-intentioned law is not what we want.”
“If cases like Noel's keep emerging, then we have a system that needs to be constantly reviewed and revised to ensure the legislation is always, in all cases, being adhered to, implemented and enforced. Where there are failures, there needs to be accountability. We must remember that it is people who are responsible for systems and failures in those systems. In too many cases I have seen, processes set down in law have been treated as unimportant by some people whose job it is to manage, engage with, handle and process complaints. While it may be the case that it is a minority of workers making protective disclosures who experience detrimental effects, this is hardly the point.”
“To those who have done the right thing, but have been let down badly by a system that is obliged to protect and support people, and who have been abused, humiliated, diminished and forced out of their work, we owe you all a system of whistleblowing that works as it was always intended to do. It can be argued, notwithstanding the motion, and I would argue this case to a point, that we are not actually in need of new legislation but in need of proper implementation and enforcement of the legislation that is already on the Statute Book. I had the opportunity to speak last night with Noel McGree, who is with us today. His experience is well known, but perhaps not as well understood by the wider public as it ought to be. He did the right thing. His claims were proven to have been correct and he has suffered, as was said earlier, inordinately.”
“The protected disclosures legislation that was enacted in 2014 and has since been revised and amended, and then updated as per the EU directive in 2022, has given a voice and legislative protections, at least, to workers who have, time and again, taken their courage into their hands, raised their voices and gone through all of the channels laid out in the legislation to make protective disclosures, perhaps over serious wrongdoing, initially to a designated person within their own workplace or externally or, in some specific cases, to a Government Minister or through other means laid out in the Act and the code. This has led to concrete changes in workplaces, with the uncovering of malpractice, fraud and other criminal acts. To those who have done this, we all owe a debt of sincere gratitude.”
“Here are just some of the terms used, in case people have not seen it or are not aware of it, when it talks about penalisation. It refers to suspension, dismissal, demotion, disciplining, unfair treatment, discrimination, harassment and threat of reprisal. I could go on. We are aware of all of this. It talks about "a culture of encouraging workers to speak out if they have genuine concerns".”
“The law then and now is first and foremost legislation that should, at all times, be and intend to be all about the protection of whistleblowers who report wrongdoing in their organisation from dismissal and any form of penalisation. In its implementation by officials in far too many cases, it has too often fallen short of those ambitions and too many people have been dragged through the mire and have been destroyed. The legislation, the supporting material and the code of practice that I referred to go into great detail, setting out what all of this involves, including what penalisation looks, sounds and feels like. This is in case anyone is capable of misunderstanding it, deliberately or otherwise. I had cause to look again at the material on the WRC website associated with the code of practice, and frankly it could not be clearer.”
“I am proud of the small role I played, more than ten years ago, in helping to develop what was then pioneering legislation, namely, the Protected Disclosures Act 2014, with my colleague, former Deputy Brendan Howlin. I come from a political tradition of reformers, from a movement that believes in solidarity and in supporting people where injustices are being done, where people are encouraged and supported to tell the truth and where individual citizens, once empowered and protected, can do great and important things. It is in this tradition that the 2014 Act and the subsequent 2015 code of practice for the Workplace Relations Commission that I signed into law came into being. The intention and ambition of that legislation was wide-ranging, and its principles were, and still are, laudable.”
“I thank the Independent Technical Group for tabling this motion. It is an issue close to my heart and it is personal. I welcome, like other colleagues, those who have gathered in the Gallery this morning. They are people who have taken enormous personal risks to do what is right. Not only have they all served the people in their roles as civil and public servants, but they have doubly served the people by taking risks to expose wrongdoing in their places of work. They have been at the forefront, whether they believe or accept it given what they have gone through, of initiating significant change. I have some history in and personal attachment to the principle of what is termed whistleblowing.”
“I acknowledge that the Minister of State may not have the information available, or maybe she was not prepared to put it on the record today. If, however, it is the case that she has that information, which she will have, or at least the NTMA will, can the Minister of State forward the information in writing to each finance spokesperson and members of the committee to let them know, to inform us, as to precisely what the breakdown of the additional Supplementary Estimate will go towards?”
“They have not been published by successive Ministers for public expenditure and reform. One way this Government can recommit to accountability and transparency in public life would be to publish that legislation, have it debated on the floor of this Chamber and have it enacted as soon as possible.”
“Thirty years on, and a year on from the formation of this Government and many years on from the commitment to revise, review, renew and update ethics legislation, we still do not have it. There is no updated ethics legislation whatsoever. We cannot be surprised at that given that Michael Lowry has been at the heart of the formation of this Government. That is a stain on the reputation of this Government in many respects. One way the Government could rescue its reputation would be to make a commitment that the laws that were introduced a number of years ago need to be modernised. We all accept that they need to be modernised and updated and that many of the lessons learned from the Moriarty tribunal need to be incorporated into the new legislative suite of proposals. We have not seen those proposals yet.”
“I accept as fact the Minister of State's point that these are demand-led situations. We absolutely understand that. The Minister of State stated, with regard to subhead A5, that the Chief State Solicitor's office had identified savings under subhead A1, administration pay and excess appropriations-in-aid, which will offset the total estimated €1.264 million expenditure shortfall in Vote 6. I ask her to elaborate on where those savings have accrued. Returning to the points related to the Moriarty tribunal of inquiry, it is incredible, almost 30 years since that tribunal first sat and almost 15 years since it reported, that we are still seeing rolling costs being accrued at the expense of the taxpayer. Thirty years on, the cumulative total now is climbing close to €100 million.”
“In her contribution, the Minister of State referred to value-for-money assessments and stated that "the current position shows that after the fees requested by counsel undergo a value-for-money assessment, it is estimated total fees to counsel in 2025 will be €17.801 million, leaving a shortfall of €801,000 in this subhead." It is quite extraordinary that after a value-for-money assessment, which usually leads to cost savings in the normal run of events, we are, in fact, saddled with a larger bill and a requirement to approve a Supplementary Estimate. I ask the Minister of State to go into some detail on how, after a value-for-money assessment, we find ourselves having to pay out more. Usually, it is the case that savings are identified when a value-for-money assessment takes place.”
“If it is the case that the Minister of State is not in a position to do that today, she could inform us, the Opposition finance spokespersons, and members of the relevant line committee of those details when she has them available to her, if she does not have them today. The Minister of State then spoke about the Project Eagle element of the NAMA commission of investigation. She articulate that "the Department has identified savings of €850,000 to offset this additional funding requirement", that is, the additional Supplementary Estimate to support the NAMA commission of investigation. I ask her to elaborate on where those savings are derived from. I move on to Vote 6 - Office of the Chief State Solicitor. It is unusual, to say the least. I draw the Minister of State's attention to subhead A4, fees to counsel.”
“Given that we talking about essentially doubling the amount of money required to support third-party costs arising from the Moriarty tribunal of inquiry this year alone, it would be useful if she could place on the record, in terms of the information that she has available, precisely who will this be paid to. We are required to drill down into the facts here, given the relative quantum of the moneys that the Minister of State is asking the House to sanction. Constitutionally, it is our role, as the Legislature, to sanction expenditure based on the proposals brought to us by the Executive. I the Minister of State to put on the record of the House as much detail as she possibly can, and provide at least a breakdown, not in global terms but in the most precise terms she can with the information she has available.”
“I intend to focus my contribution on asking some questions about the statement the Minister of State made outlining this proposition and, in general terms, what the Supplementary Estimates are designed to support. A total Revised Estimate of €3.31 million was provided for tribunals of inquiry in 2025. We are talking about third-party costs for the Moriarty tribunal. The updated Estimate is €6.785 million in 2025 for third-party costs involving the Moriarty tribunal. That is a funding requirement now that is being requested of this House, a Supplementary Estimate of €3.475 million. There is a relatively limited amount of information contained in the Minister of State's proposal.”
“We would be better served using all the resources we have to introduce genuine affordable housing schemes and backing cost rental, for which there is huge demand, to a degree we are not currently doing. We will oppose these resolutions.”
“All the evidence shows that the vast majority of people who are accessing this support already had the deposit to obtain their homes. It probably is not responsible for the building of a single home that would not have been built in any case. We expect the same will apply in terms of the impact of the VAT reduction on the development of apartments. The help-to-buy scheme will continue to cost several hundred million euro between now and the end of 2030. It has been described as giving certainty to first-time buyers and developers. In fact, it gives certainty only to developers that they will absolutely coin it in. It will contribute to house price inflation at a time when we should be doing everything we can to increase supply and ensure the supply that is there is affordable.”
“There is no doubt whatsoever that this support will be absorbed by developers. This has been the case time and again. We are dealing with two amendments in this debate. Help to buy is a case in point. From the original Mazars report commissioned by the Department a number of years ago and the advice issued to the then Minister when the scheme was in its infancy, it was very clear that there was a deadweight effect in terms of help to buy. Those of us on this side of the House said time and again that developers would pocket the difference. That has had an inflationary impact. It is not the only reason house price inflation is such an issue but the help-to-buy scheme has contributed to inflation since its inception. The deadweight effect is very clear.”
“As I said, there is no evidence we can rely on at this stage, outside of the say-so of developers, that this will improve supply and, in improving supply, will address affordability issues for purchasers. The deadweight effect of this is something of which we need to be conscious. I support the amendment proposed by Deputy Doherty that there be a report generated by the Department. We look forward to the advice becoming available. However, when former Minister, Paschal Donohoe, who was developing this proposition, and the Government saw it through, I imagine the advice from the Department was to at the very least tread cautiously on this because of the lack of availability of any evidence whatsoever that this would have the desired effect the Minister said it would have on supply and affordability.”
“It makes sense for them to do that rather than engage with individual purchasers unit by unit. The jury is open on why that is the case. Many of us on this side of the House, as well as commentators since the Finance Bill was published, drew attention on Committee Stage to the fact that approved housing bodies and those who involved themselves in forward funding arrangements were not captured by this proposition. Apparently that is what this new resolution seeks to deal with but it is something of an emergency fix which should have been anticipated. Moving to the points made by Deputy Doherty on the deadweight effect, there are a number of different problems with this particular resolution and policy. Among those is the deadweight effect that it will inevitably have.”
“In my constituency, in particular around the Drogheda area, an area with which the Minister will be very familiar, no apartment complex has been built in recent years that has not ended up being purchased at one point or another towards the end of its journey by an approved housing body or local authority. They are mostly purchased by approved housing bodies. They tend to start their journey as private operators for the market and, for a variety of reasons, these projects end up being acquired by approved housing bodies in their entirety. There are reasons for that. The point has been made by some that there is no market for apartments. I do not accept that. It seems to me to be simply a matter of good business for developers to sell blocks of apartments en masse to approved housing bodies.”
“How this will contribute to making apartments more plentiful and cheaper for hard-pressed first-time buyers is arguable. There is no evidence whatsoever to suggest that this is going to work in the way in which the Minister and his colleagues have claimed in recent weeks. We drew attention a number of weeks ago to the fact that the way in which the initial resolution was crafted essentially excluded approved housing bodies from benefiting from the measure. Notwithstanding our opposition, in the context of the debate and discourse that occurred over the past two weeks, it is of course important, if this is a measure the Government wishes to pursue, that it has the widest possible effect.”
“I welcome the opportunity to speak on this resolution for a number of reasons. The Labour Party's position on the resolution brought forward on budget night in respect of the proposal to cut VAT for apartment developers was well rehearsed on that night and on Committee Stage of the Finance Bill a couple of short weeks ago. We sought to make the point on budget night and introduced amendments that were, unfortunately, ruled out of order that we are required to comply with the VAT directive. There was an attempt to describe this particular measure as some way in which the Government proposes to address social concerns bedded in an attempt to address social policy issues. It is a very big stretch to interpret a handout to developers as social policy.”
“Yesterday, those of us who are TDs in Louth were receiving emails from a principal of Darver National School advising students to bring in toilet roll and their own hand towels with them today. She should commit to making education genuinely free. That should be the Minister's legacy.”
“A responsible Minister for Finance would ensure as well that they would do something that has sadly been lacking in recent years, which is to make our budget-making system more transparent that there would be more accountability to this House and to Dáil committees on how we spend the public's money because budgets these days are quite simply works of fiction. I congratulate all of those on their new appointments today: the new Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Defence, Deputy McEntee, the newly-minted Minister of state, Deputy Feighan, and the Minister of State, Deputy Higgins as well. I have one word of advice for the incoming Minister for Education and Youth, Deputy Naughton.”
“The Minister, Deputy Harris's, 9% VAT rate cut proves that point. We cannot have more of this. If we get more of the same from the incoming Minister for Finance, the economy is sure to hit the rails. This VAT cut alone makes me wonder about the incoming Minister's judgment on economic affairs, what we may expect and what may lie ahead. A responsible Minister for Finance would use this opportunity today to frame his or term in that office by saying that these kinds of wheezes will not be entertained anymore and that he or she will carefully and responsibly manage the economy, for example, by indexing tax changes for working people over the next few years in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis.”
“One of the most unjustifiable and unwarranted tax cuts in decades was made in budget 2026. It is contained in the Finance Bill and it is the nonsensical VAT cut down to 9% for the hospitality sector. This tax cut, at the expense of working people who will pay more tax next year as a result of this, has the Tánaiste's fingerprints all over it. In fact, the only people who seem to think that boosting the bottom line of burger barons was a good idea was Deputy Harris, the new Minister for Finance, and the Minister for Enterprise, Tourism and Employment, Deputy Burke. I have said time and again, based on all of the evidence and actions of this Government, and its previous iterations, that this, and the previous Administration's, reputation for responsible fiscal management is wholly unwarranted.”
“While we may differ politically, I will miss him at some of the same gigs we managed to attend. While we differ politically, we also differ in terms of our football teams as well but we can move beyond that. In Deputy Donohoe’s engagement with me and my party over the years, he has shown nothing but respect, integrity and honour and I thank him for that. I wish him, Justine and the family every success in his next chapter. The changing of a Minister for Finance is no small thing. When the figure at the top of the Department of Finance changes, the dynamic of a Government and the relationship between the Minister and the Department of public expenditure changes as well. That access is really important. Under the Tánaiste, this dynamic, of course, will change.”
“I hope we have shown that you can disagree with somebody philosophically and politically but remain firm friends and I like to think we are just that.”
“County Louth has been in mourning over the past few days and we all unite in sending our sympathies and condolences to the families left behind after that unspeakable tragedy outside Dundalk on Saturday night. I congratulate Deputy Donohoe on his appointment. This is a very significant personal achievement and this is also a very significant achievement for Ireland. This is evidence of the respect in which Ireland is held on the international stage and the respect he has commanded in the context of his presidency of the Eurogroup. That is evidenced in his appointment announced today. Deputy Donohoe and I were appointed to government on the exact same day, along with Deputy Alan Kelly. There are only two survivors of that Government in the House.”
“In some respects, however, that is a scapegoating exercise. Our problem these days is not money. It was always money but now it is delivery and this Government will be judged on delivery. The IMF said clearly that our infrastructure lags 32% behind comparable countries. It is a rich country that feels very poor.”
“Would the Government take any responsibility for what the Minister described as the unnecessary processes that have developed over time? We hear a lot of analysis of this and finally the Government appears to be cottoning on to the fact we have a real problem with delivery. We have been saying it in opposition for years - I try to be constructive and put forward alternative proposals for delivery of infrastructure - but it is only when someone like John Collison writes an article for a national newspaper that senior Government representatives seem to take notice. I understand from the media that Fianna Fáil backbenchers have been saying this for a long time as well. There is a form of fetishisation of bureaucracy in this country. We seem to love it and get caught up in it, but it may have gone too far.”
“In fact, I would advise caution in that regard. The Minister should be streamlining the process for using the infrastructure guidelines, not necessarily increasing the threshold.”
“This is all well and good and we have been reading a lot about this since the revised national development plan was published. We will see updates on specific projects shortly. Will there be timelines for those projects? Looking beyond the abstract, what will it mean for people? For example, will the package of proposals that the Minister wants implemented shorten the timeframe for the delivery of the MetroLink or the northern line DART project to Drogheda? How many new homes will it deliver? At the moment this is all in the abstract about task forces and so on reporting but there is very little detail. The Minister briefed the media earlier this week that the threshold in the Department's infrastructure guidelines will increase from €200 million to €500 million. I am not absolutely convinced that will improve project delivery.”
“We have been reading a lot of significant information in the media in recent days and weeks about plans the Minister appears to have to improve the delivery of infrastructure and capital development in the context of the revised national development plan, NDP. Will he elaborate precisely on what those plans are and how he plans to implement them?”
“Services like Red Door in my hometown of Drogheda provide vital support to those in addiction and are ready - they stand ready, willing and able - to do more if given the resources to do so and if we can introduce the kind of transformational change we need in drugs policy in this country to support people who need it most.”
“It says very clearly: Government should allocate significant additional funding on a multi-annual basis to drugs services across the statutory, community and voluntary sectors, to address existing service gaps, including in the provision of community-based and residential treatment services, to support the implementation of the recommendations of the Citizens’ Assembly. Quite frankly, this has not been the case and has not been so for successive governments. Without that funding, any policy change will be set up to fail. The services are already in place on the ground in many communities but by God they are stretched. They need certainty and multi-annual funding.”
“Recommendation 17 from its report argues for the introduction of a “comprehensive health-led response to possession of drugs for personal use." While possession of controlled drugs would remain illegal, people found in possession of illicit drugs for personal uses would be afforded “extensive opportunities to engage voluntarily with health-led services”, the citizens' assembly recommendation explained. For this policy to work, the citizens' assembly laid out the supports that need to be in place in the following recommendation, that is, recommendation 18.”
“In 2000, there were 907 such diagnoses, falling to just 18 in 2017. Another benefit to this approach to drug use will be to reduce the pressure on prison places. As long as the change in policy is matched by multi-annual resourcing of health and addiction services and supports for people who use drugs, we have a chance here to take a transformational approach to drug use and make a meaningful reduction in the harm caused by drugs. The endless Garda hours used chasing people who use drugs can be turned on those who profit from the misery caused by the sale and trafficking of drugs. The citizens' assembly has done tremendous work on this issue.”
“My colleague and Labour MEP for Dublin, Aodhán Ó Ríordáin, has led the charge - as has rightly been said - on this issue in Ireland for a number of years now and he is continuing to lead the way in Europe. The most obvious example to follow in a European context is that of Portugal. One thing is crystal clear from the Portuguese example, that is, moving to a health-based and approach away from punishment, reduces serious harms from drug use. Portugal has more than 20 years’ experience under its belt and in the first two decades of this approach, it saw deaths from drug use and incidents of HIV tumble, as well as a fall in prison the population. In 1999, it saw 369 people lose their lives due to overdose. By 2016, that figure had tumbled to just 30. HIV diagnoses due to drug injection also fell dramatically over the same period.”
“As I say, I look forward to working with the Minister on Committee Stage. We in Labour will be tabling many amendments to the legislation at that point.”
“It is the first extension to other urban areas in many years, as the Minister will know. As he will also know, dereliction and vacancy is not confined to regional development centres under the national planning framework. This is how the selection appeared to be made. I understand the logic but we may need to do more. For example, could we not consider ensuring that this anti-dereliction and vacancy initiative is extended to towns with populations of more than 20,000. That would make sense and I believe we should tease that out on Committee Stage. I look forward to working with the Minister in amending the legislation to improve it on Committee Stage in two short weeks. It is an extensive Bill. We have limited time here to discuss all the areas we would like to cover.”
“Those who are responsible must be hit hard in the pocket. It is the only language they understand. The job of collecting that levy, which will now be rebranded as a tax, will go to Revenue, but, of course, the matter is not dealt with in this Bill. It was announced on budget day, and my understanding is that it will go live in 2027. That is another year wasted, which is a year that we can ill afford as the housing crisis becomes worse. For several years, I have sought to amend the living city initiative on Committee Stage of Finance Bills to expand its coverage to Drogheda and Dundalk. The Department has finally taken note of this and it is welcome that the living cities initiative will be extended from 2027 to cover Ireland's two largest towns, Drogheda and Dundalk. We could go further.”
“The Minister will recall that when the household charge became the local property tax, compliance rates shot up because the tax was now being collected by the Revenue Commissioners, with all that that entails. Levies charged by councils are routinely ignored. The fact that some properties find their way onto the register in the first place often sees that decision being challenged by the courts. If you are a property business owner, you must have deep pockets if you can afford to preside over a situation where a vacant property that is not in use is not working for your business. Every business owner needs to sweat every asset that they have. If it is the case that you are allowing your properties to become derelict and vacant, you must have deep pockets. This is a form of extreme antisocial behaviour.”