Many thousands of housing estates in this country are unfinished. They have not been handed over to local authorities. Many local authorities state they cannot take them in charge because they do not have moneys available to them. I stood yesterday with Councillor Ger Curley in housing estates in Cobh. The infrastructure needs to be fixed. Lighting needs to be put in place. We are waiting for engineers' reports. That is the case for thousands of housing estates. They are not just from the Celtic tiger days when builders went bust and there was no bond in place. A housing estate in Rathcooney in Cork has not been taken in charge in 47 years. It is a group of houses. The roads are in an appalling condition. Will the Taoiseach commit to instigating a national fund from which local authorities can draw down to take housing estates in charge?

Without commenting on specific cases, the State has been asked to intervene left, right and centre, and everywhere. There is a problem there in terms of sustainability. When estates are developed, there have to be bonds and people have responsibilities. There are different cases, and I accept all of that, but there is an issue for us as a State. People have obligations when they enter these contracts and finish estates and so forth. Forty-seven years is a bit long, and I take that point, but I am speaking more generally. I will ask the Minister for housing for his observations. We are committing unprecedented sums of money to local authorities on housing across a whole range of headings. Only today, the Government decided to provide more funding to the local authorities for retrofitting and voids. The local authorities tend to use it for other reasons or in different ways. They spend an amount on the deep retrofit and refurbishment of houses-----

Thank you, Taoiseach.

-----where that was never the original reason for the allocation of a grant. The money was given to something else.