Rebecca Moynihan (Labour) | Oireachtas source

Many of my questions have been answered and I do not want to go over what other colleagues have said. I want to try to pull out some more solutions to it. I do not think anybody here can say addressing vacant housing is going to be the panacea for the housing crisis but it is an important toolkit for us in that effort, particularly for bringing our towns and cities back to life. With that in mind, I am quite interested in what Ms Vallone and Mr. Reid talked about. Ms Vallone gave the example of other perspectives from other cities she has worked with and the benefits that accrued. I have questions for her and the departmental officials. We had people from Anois before us talking about dereliction in Cork and giving us examples of what happens in Amsterdam. I ask Ms Vallone to give us some solutions by suggesting two measures the Department could implement that it could reasonably do. What would they be?

I have a very similar question for Mr. Reid because he talked about regulation and costs being issues. Are there any specific regulations he thinks are be easily identifiable and could be changed? Where are the bulk of costs coming from? I think Mr. Reynolds referenced that for a €35,000 refit, approximately €10,000 of that is planning fees. I want to get a sense of whether there is any low-hanging fruit nobody is really noticing or doing anything about.

Turning to the Department, and I may be springing this on the officials somewhat, but have they had any experience of other European neighbours that do not have the same problem with dereliction and that have brought their towns and cities back to life? Amsterdam is a very good example of a decaying urban centre that was very proactively brought back to life. It required people to register vacant housing if it was empty for more than six months. Those are my three questions. If there are other questions that have not been addressed, they can be taken in my time if there is any left over.