Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I would say I have been more proactive than any Minister before me on empty houses. This practice has been going on for years. For the first time, we have decided to tackle the issue and to allocate specific amounts of money for those requiring major works. Significant work has to be done on some of those houses, some of which have been lying there for years and are a blot on the landscape of very good housing estates. For example, there is an empty house in the middle of a block and people have to live with it. That is why we specifically provided this funding, despite the constraints of the capital budgets for these void houses. We are tracking them. We know which houses will be refurbished in each local authority. We will have before and after information. We know the money will be spent on refurbishing those houses and that they will have to be allocated within a particular period, once they have been refurbished. That is dealing with the past, so to speak.

For the future, there will be specific guidelines on how quickly they will have to be turned over. If that is put into legislation, the problem is that one is including the house that Senator Kathryn Reilly might leave tomorrow in perfectly good condition, which can be allocated immediately to another tenant, with the house in which somebody else had a fire that simply cannot be allocated in that length of period. Therefore, it cannot be put into legislation and we cannot have a one-size-fit-all in terms of how quickly each house will be turned over. The Senator is correct that we must have a good practice that turns them over as quickly as possible and provides homes for families who are on the waiting list. I am in the process of doing that. We are some way along the line. We are monitoring the situation and considering the possibility of some kind of regulations that will oblige the local authorities to move them quickly.

Some of the local authorities have got legal advice in respect of certain things that have to be in a house before it can be assigned to a new tenant. We are looking to the County and City Managers Association for best practice so that local authorities, who feel that everything must be perfect before a next tenant moves in, may be given an assurance that they may not necessarily have to do that. We are applying the legal advice that we have across the board. I assure Senator Paschal Mooney we have done a great deal. I am determined to get to the bottom of this because many people in desperate situations are waiting for houses and we simply cannot stand by and houses vacant. I feel strongly about this issue and would welcome ideas and support from Senators on how to bring good practice into all local authorities with a view to ensuring that funding is provided for those vacant houses which have boarded-up for many years in some authorities' areas.