Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Many of the articles being written about housing refer to large volumes of houses lying empty that could be let to the local authorities for long or short periods or let into the general rental market to help ease the housing shortage. However, as there is a great deal of confusion around the rules people are standing back from doing that. Has the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government contacted Revenue about this issue? As I said, there is a stream of empty houses, certainly in my constituency, that are not occupied. Does Revenue have round-table meetings with other players, particularly the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government, local authorities and the Health Service Executive, on the 62,000 exempted properties and what proportion of them could be made available to rent because people in practice no longer live in them? Perhaps if the fair deal-style problem could be ironed out, a proportion of these houses could be made available to rent. The Taoiseach regularly speaks of a whole-of-Government approach. I put it to the witnesses that cross-departmental engagement on how some of these properties could be made available would be appropriate. This would help to alleviate the current shortage of properties to rent. There does not seem to be any comprehensive source from which to identify these properties. I am sure the witnesses are aware that many people are accidental house minders because of situations that have developed with parents and so on who, if the rules were clarified, might be prepared to make these houses available. While they might lose the local property tax exemption, assuming they are in receipt of rent that would not be a problem.