Brian Leddin (Limerick City, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I wish to follow on from Deputy Canney's points on the help-to-buy scheme. If I heard the Minister correctly, his concern is that we would end up effectively renovating homes that are already lived in and not actually reactivating vacant homes. I encourage him to take this very seriously and to think about it because we have some very good Government policy at the moment between the rural strategy, the town centres dispersed policy being developed and the remote working strategy. I think there are 200,000 vacant homes spread across the State. It will not be possible to reactivate all of them but a substantial portion of them could be reactivated as homes, particularly for young families, to bring life back to our towns and villages.

Perhaps there is a way around the Minister's concerns and we can be creative in introducing some kind of modification of the help to buy scheme so that young people, in particular, are supported in purchasing what are essentially vacant private structures. The benefits would be entirely positive and align with Government policy. I would be interested in hearing more of the Minister's thoughts on this suggestion.