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

On the question about how many properties this has brought back into use over recent years, in 2017 it was 1,225 and in 2018 it was 2,115. It was just over 3,330 properties brought back into use. That is over 3,000 tenants and their families who are now in refurbished rental accommodation that was not available to them before the landlord made use of this allowance. In terms of what the cost of it has been, overall it is €1 million. It was €300,000 in 2017 and €700,000 in 2018. On the question regarding where they are located geographically and what the levels of rent would be against those properties, I do not have that information available. However, I would not imagine that information on the level of rent that would be relevant to these properties would be collected by the Revenue Commissioners as part of the process for this relief anyway.

Deputy Boyd Barrett asked if I think this creates incentives that could be counterproductive, in other words, it might create an incentive for a property to go vacant and then for this relief to be claimed against it. I am not sure that this is at a value that would justify that kind of behaviour. The reason is that the deduction here is capped at €5,000. My judgment is that a gain of €5,000 might not be enough for many landlords to decide to have a property vacant. That is my sense, particularly bearing in mind that the other criterion here is that the property has to be vacant for at least 12 months. Given the concerns we have regarding the level of rents, I do not believe many landlords will have a property entirely vacant for 12 months for the potential gain of €5,000.

With regard to REITs and Irish real estate funds, IREFs, they are separate from this. They are subject to their own tax regime. The figures we have indicate that this is a tax relief that is being drawn on by multiple smaller landlords. In 2017, it was 630 landlords overall who claimed the €1.1 million against just over 1,200 properties and, in 2018, it was 1,030 tax payers who claimed it against 2,115 properties. These figures indicate that it is multiple landlords with a small number of properties each, perhaps one or two, who are accessing this scheme.