asked the Minister for the Environment how many units of local authority housing stock in each separate authority area, are not currently in use and have not been used for a period of three months or more.

12.

asked the Minister for the Environment how many units of old or fully completed private housing in each county are not currently in use and have not been used for a period of three months or more.

With the permission of the Ceann Comhairle, it is proposed to take Questions No. 11 and 12 together.

The information requested by the Deputy is not available. Information on unoccupied houses, obtained as a result of the 1981 census, will be published by the Central Statistics Office in due course.

My colleague, Deputy Higgins, has a similar question — Question No. 13 — which relates to the availability of information from local authorities to the Department of the Environment. I accept that in all probability the information is not available to the Minister. In view of the inability of the Department to manage efficiently the housing stock, is the Minister prepared to set up a structure that would allow this information to become available?

Local authorities know the number of houses that are occupied and the number that are unoccupied and any member of a local authority can get that information. The other information requested by the Deputy will be available early in the new year in the census.

I am asking the Minister if he will take steps to give himself and his successors the necessary information to get proper management of local authority housing stock.

The information is always available at the end of the year. If we request information from local authorities they will give it to us. However, with regard to privately owned houses, the Deputy will appreciate that it might be a costly project for local authorities to get the necessary information. I am all in favour of putting the moneys at my disposal into new housing and other essential items.

Will the Minister not agree that some local authorities have allowed units of their housing stock to be vacant for an undue length of time and have not communicated that information to their members, let alone to the Minister? In view of the fact that all capital moneys for new housing have to come from his Department, does the Minister not consider it prudent and an exercise in good management to make local authorities give this information directly to him on a monthly basis so that he may see just how efficient they are in managing their own housing stock?

I was a member of a local authority for many years. As far as I know, local authorities, and particularly the members of such authorities, know the number of houses unoccupied. As the Deputy knows, there are legal problems involved and there is a limit to the extent I and local authorities can go. However, if I want information regarding the number of unoccupied local authority houses I have no problem in getting it. I might add that the Deputy would have no problem either.

The Minister had just said he has not the information.

The Deputy is talking in a broader context, in regard to all houses unoccupied. At the end of the year that information will be available from the census. It would require local authorities to use many of their resources and would take a considerable time to get the information requested by the Deputy and I do not intend to ask them to do so.

I wish to clarify the rather confused answer given by the Minister.

We cannot have a debate on the matter.

I do not intend to debate it. Am I correct in understanding from the Minister that a local authority member can get the information from the authority but I cannot get such information from him?

A local authority member can get the information from his own authority. I should like to add that I have not received any complaints.

The Minister is getting one now.

That may well be.