Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I have a number of issues to raise on this group of amendments. Deputy Matthews talked about the rate it applies at. My amendment No. 79 will deal with this issue. The rate is currently 0.3% of the value of the house, which is well below what we see in other vacant property taxes. In the example Deputy Matthews gave, it was 1.5%, which then increases. There is an argument that vacant property taxes should exist to encourage properties to come into available stock and so on and that it is not just about a housing crisis. If we look at the environmental impact of building new homes as opposed to using vacant stock, then the answers are clear. In the mouth of a significant housing crisis, starting at a very low base is seriously questionable. Sinn Féin has argued, and I am sure Deputy Boyd Barrett and People Before Profit have argued, for years with regard to the vacant property tax. It is frustrating it has taken so long to convince the Government of the merits of something and the need to do something. We finally have it. This could have had an impact if the Government had listened a number of years ago and introduced this. It would have been hoped it would have resulted in the behavioural change that vacant property taxes are about.

Such a tax is not about collecting revenue; it is about trying to ensure that vacant properties come back into the housing stock and are either sold on to people who want them as homes or rented out to those who want to rent them for a short or long period.

I have a serious issue with the rate. In some cases, the rate of the vacant property tax will be €270. That will be fine for some people. They will just write the cheque. It is not a deterrent to company or an individual that does not want to bring a property back into use. Admittedly, that is the lowest point but part of the amendments I put forward is there should be a minimum rate. It makes sense for this because the LPT is based on the value of a person's house and so forth, but the vacant property tax is about getting properties back into use. The house is likely to be second-hand and therefore less valuable. It may also be in a particular area, or be smaller. A rate of €270 is far too low. It would be easy for the Minister to bring forward an amendment on Report Stage amendment to the effect that the formula for the LPT is A = B x C, or €500, and a person is liable for whichever sum is the greater. I am just using €500 as an example. We are bringing this in. I hope it will have the desired effect and that it will have a quick effect because that is what we want. However, we must acknowledge that in some places, in some parts and for certain properties, likely older ones, we are talking about a lower value and therefore it might be €90 x 3, giving €270. That is too low. I strongly urge the Minister to look at that.

The second part of our amendment is about what Deputy Boyd Barrett raised, namely, the gains here. Is it just increasing the value of the property? We are seeing that. People are saying they will just write the cheque and as prices go up they will make the cost of the tax back in a couple of years' time. That is also an issue. I hear what the Minister is saying about how if we deal with the gains the rate could be very high and if the Government was doing that it would capture everybody. I do not have that view, but there are other people who need access to finance to do the renovations to bring a property into a rental situation. The way to deal with that is this rate should increase every year. Ultimately, the Government does not want the money here. That is not the purpose. We want the stock to come into use, so if somebody is just cutting a cheque every year then this has failed dramatically. A sign of the failure of this section will be the Revenue benefiting in income terms. We hope that will happen in the first year but, equally, we hope the income decreases after that. The Minister should be increasing this. I am aware it can be reviewed next year and so on and so forth. I have no doubt that, as we have seen with many things, the rate will be increased. It makes sense the rate should increase. It does not need to do so dramatically but it should increase year on year. If somebody is in their third year of leaving one property or half a dozen properties vacant, then in no way should it be the same amount. It should be punitive. The rate should increase by a multiple of what the first year cost each year.

The third part of this is that dereliction, which is the elephant in the room, is excluded. I made the point earlier that Revenue will have some data on uninhabitable premises from administering the household charge and the LPT. The fact that the latter is self-assessed notwithstanding, people have made valid and genuine claims that a house is uninhabitable and it is not just a case of it not having electricity, a kitchen or a toilet. We may have situations where somebody had been paying the LPT for years and then they are struck by a situation where the house burns down or partially does, and becomes an uninhabitable house as a result. That information would be provided. That does not really get to the crux of the issue though, because a property being uninhabitable and a property being derelict are two separate things. The elephant in the room is the 160,000 vacant properties, many of which will probably be outside the scope of this because they will fall into the scenario where they are uninhabitable. and that is a problem. I hear what the Minister is saying. Again, it is late in the day. It is just so frustrating that we must wait another year for the Government to come up with a derelict sites levy. It has never worked. Some 19 local authorities did not collect a red cent through the levy. On average, 32% of the amount is being collected by local authorities. It is not working. As I have said, if this was a normal scenario we could say that is okay or that it might take a bit of time to work through but the Minister's party leader calls this an emergency, and rightly so. However, that means there needs to be an emergency response and this is not that. This section is easy as you go. It is not even going to apply until 1 January 2024, I believe.