Thomas Gould (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

There are 166,000 vacant homes. Many are homes that people could live in and where they could raise families. Instead, this Government is leaving them idle, empty and rotting. When the Government tells us it is serious about tackling climate change, I ask how serious it is. It is serious enough about making ordinary people struggle to pay prices, taxes and unfair carbon taxes but it is not serious about tackling the wealthy speculators who are hoarding homes in the middle of a housing crisis. There are no simple fixes to climate change but there are solutions. Repairing and retrofitting a built house is better for the environment. Everyone accepts this. Using empty stock would make a real difference and it would deliver homes quickly. In my constituency, Cork North-Central, there are areas where one in five homes is empty. Does the Minister of State know how frustrating this is for families where three or four generations live in a house and the house next door is empty? It is wrong. Children are sleeping in hotels and the rich are profiting from leaving these homes empty. That is wrong.

We need to build new homes if we are serious about tackling the housing crisis and the climate crisis. We need to be serious about finding solutions. Tackling vacancy and dereliction is a fair solution. It creates homes for people, reduces dumping and makes it better for the environment. The Government's answer to that in last year's budget was a vacant homes tax of 0.3%. How is it serious?

A number of years ago, when I was a councillor on Cork City Council, I was told by the OPW that in 40 to 50 years, because of global warming, Cork city will need a flood protection barrier. Is the Government planning to protect Cork from flooding because of global warming? What plans are in place to do that?

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