Emer Higgins (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

One thing I would like the committee to look at is collaboration with the Departments of Finance and Health to incentivise people who are on the fair deal scheme to rent out their unoccupied home. Many unoccupied homes are not in use because it does not make any sense for people on the fair deal scheme to rent them out as so much of that income immediately goes back to the State. We looked before at incentivising this. I am not sure where it is at and we could play a role in reinvigorating that. It would probably come in under item No. 1, Minister and relevant Department officials, if we asked them to include that in their report to us.

I also seek to look at a nationwide approach to energy efficiency in Government housing stock. I am aware different local authorities are leading the way doing great pioneering work and it would be great to learn from them. If we are looking at standardising things such as differential rent we could also look at standardising issues like how boilers are serviced and maintained. That could come under No. 3, affordability and land use management, which includes the approved housing bodies, AHB. Density in city centres-----