Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I do not need reminding by Deputy Doherty or any other Deputy of the seriousness of the homelessness issue in this country and in this city. I live in and represent a constituency which is afflicted by this and I represent families who are dealing with the trauma of not having a home. I see it with my own eyes, and represent the people affected by the tragedy of not having a home or a stable roof over their heads from which they can send their children to school, in which they can cook dinner or help with the homework and where they can do all the other things families do who have their own homes. I am well aware of the incredible distress families are facing in this regard.

Last week, I said that I take the figures for the number of children at risk from poverty in our country as seriously as the economic indicators on what is happening with bond yields or unemployment rates. I am well aware of the challenges this poses to our economy and the unacceptable cost it imposes on society, families and on mums and dads and their children. I am doing, and will continue to do, what I can do as Minister for Finance and Public Expenditure and Reform to deal with the issue and this is why, next year, the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government, led by the Minister, Deputy Eoghan Murphy, will receive an increase in resources. It is in recognition of the fact that we have to address the issue that, in the Rebuilding Ireland plan, the Department to receive the largest increase in its share of capital funding is the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government.

I have said that we should move away from the State acquiring homes in the private market to building them via our local authorities and through other means. I also want this issue to be dealt with and it is not accurate to say no action is taking place. It is also unfair and inaccurate to say nothing is being done in relation to vacant homes.

I have already told the committee that by the month just gone, all local authorities in the Dublin area had to come back to the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government with a vacant homes action plan to deal with this issue in local authorities with the powers that are available to them. As part of that, if there were additional measures we need to consider with regard to the issues and difficulties we have on all of this, that will also be done.

I will return to the amendment the Deputy has tabled. Let me talk about the statistics that are available to us and some of the challenges those statistics generate. For example, if we look at where we were between census 2011 and 2016, the stock of residential properties across that five-year period increased from 1.994 million to just over 2 million, which is an increase of 0.4%. The number of vacant properties fell in that period. It is at 183,312 units at the moment. The number of holiday homes went up and most of the reduction in vacant properties has been in urban areas where we saw a decrease of 35,000 units. The information available to us at the moment, which is information from the CSO, indicates that there are lower vacancy rates in the larger urban areas. If I look at who owns those vacant properties - this moves into the issue Deputy McGrath just raised - the information we have is hard to come by but it indicates that over one third of vacant properties are owned by citizens over 60 years of age. Potentially, the largest owner of this stock is our elderly and there are all kinds of reasons that property might not be in use. If we look at the change I have referred to, over 105,000 of the properties that were vacant in 2011 are now occupied. Of those, more than half are now rented out. Close to 40% are owner-occupied. In the urban areas that I referred to a moment ago, up to 70% of the properties that were vacant in 2011 are now rented and over half of those are by families with children. There has been a change in the number of vacant properties between then and now. Action is being taken by Government to deal with this issue such as the action plans I referred to by county. That information has been shared with the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government in the past week.

I will address the Deputy's amendment. The Deputy is not asking me to consider the introduction of a vacant home tax. He is asking us to introduce a report within six months of the passing of the Bill on the introduction of such a tax. We have many challenges in terms of understanding how many homes are vacant, why they are vacant, who owns them and for how long they have been vacant. The challenge for me is that to give an indication that this tax will be brought in without answering all of those questions first will yield further issues and questions that would have me back before the committee pretty promptly. I will not commit to that principle until I am clear about how I can handle those matters.

Deputy Burton made a fair point. There is information, most of it from the CSO, trying to help us to understand this issue. More work needs to be done on this by the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government, with which I will help it. I want to bring this work to a conclusion as soon as possible. There are policy issues that need to be conclusively addressed to allow me to make a final assessment on whether there is a role for a vacant home tax. Until those questions are finally answered, I cannot commit to that principle. Where I will not yield any territory is on the commitment to ensuring the trauma of children and families in hotel rooms and those who are homeless is dealt with conclusively. That is what I want to see happen and I will see it happen. For the reasons I have outlined, I cannot commit to the principle of the introduction of this tax because there is work under way already on how the issue could be dealt with at local authority level. There are too many matters I want to resolve before I can commit to that principle. I want to resolve those matters. I want to be in a position where I can come back to the Oireachtas or committee and answer conclusively the different questions being put to me regarding the information that is available.