Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I would say it is absolutely not acceptable. In the teeth of a housing crisis that reply just shows that the Minister has got it all wrong. The reference period has already started but before the legislation has passed, the Minister has come up with a figure for how must tax the measure will raise but he has no idea what outcomes he wants, which is why we in Sinn Féin and others on the left have been begging him and the Government to introduce a vacant property tax. If the Minister and the Government had listened to us back in the day and applied such a tax, maybe we would not have as many people experiencing a housing crisis today. Some of the homes that are vacant in this city and elsewhere, including in my home county, would have come back into the housing stock if the tax had been applied at a proper rate.