Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 23 November 2017

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government

Vacant Housing (Refurbishment) Bill 2017: Discussion

9:30 am

Photo of Barry CowenBarry Cowen (Offaly, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The technical guidelines must be put in place. The current system of inspections cannot be allowed to continue.

That is why we think this proposal will enhance and improve the process going forward. All properties will be inspected and the worry about subdivision will be addressed. Evidence from a recent programme suggests this issue is ridiculous in the extreme. The self-certification system and the risk-based system is not serving our constituents well. It does not auger well for the future if that is to continue. There is also the area of latent insurance defects. This system will improve the potential for insurance to be secured that cannot be secured at the moment.

I accept and acknowledge the witnesses' expertise, experience and professionalism, and we will take it on board. We began this consultation process scrutinising the Bill as it stands. We want to improve it. We want to broaden the consultation to include some of those stakeholders and others that I mentioned with a view to fine tuning this Bill and ensuring that it plays its part as urgently as is practically possible in bringing these properties on stream. We hope the Government will recognise that and the witnesses, as advisers to Government, would also recognise that. The Government then, in its political sphere, can improve things such as the repair and lease scheme to marry against this mechanism to ensure that we do not have €35 million set aside but only seven projects approved to date. That is all we want to do. We will play politics some other day when that arises.

In the meantime, in the absence of that strategy and that chapter materialising into real and effective change, it is our duty to come together and to put proposals forward. We would hope to direct the Department, as will the Dáil, but let the Dáil be best informed before it makes that decision. However, let it make that decision urgently on the part of those we represent.

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