"These two buildings are owned by Dublin City Council. Why? What are we going to do with them? Over the years, the council has acquired a few properties with the best of intentions, but then discovered that they bought a site full of problems. You might know these houses on Connock Street. They were really magnificent at one time, but they've so far gone into their eliction, they would cost a fortune to restore. Other sites are much better. These houses on Tyrol Place are actually lovely. They're small and need to be renovated, but they're structurally sound. There could be people living happily here as soon as next year. The Buy and Renew Committee on the council are working through a list of 32 properties like this, all with different challenges. We want a clear plan for everything on the list by the end of the year. Restore them, demolish them, sell them, whatever. But do something with them to bring them back into use. And we have to stop being left with problem properties like this, because the council buys buildings that are falling into their eliction to stop them getting worse. But the legal definition of their eliction is so restrictive that they're sometimes on the point of falling down when we buy them, and that makes it so much harder to restore the buildings. We need the power to buy sooner, so we can make these buildings viable homes and businesses much sooner and for much less money. That's better for everybody."