Ms Alisha Ryan:

I thank Senator Lombard for his questions on grants. There are numerous grants and they are good, but they need to be improved drastically. We spoke about the issues in getting tradespeople and builders. From my perspective as a young person, I am aware that many of them have emigrated. In addition to people finding it difficult to obtain planning permission, there are many tradespeople emigrating.

The terms and conditions of the vacant property refurbishment grant, whereby the work must be completed within 13 months, are not realistic. To relieve the pressure on builders and tradespeople, the period needs to be expanded to at least 24 months. If a person does not live in the house or rent it out for more than ten years, he or she has to pay back 75% of the grant. This frightens people away from the grant. Ten years is quite a long period. The circumstances of individuals and families change and 75% is a lot of money to have to pay back.

Our president mentioned the grant from the Heritage Council, in partnership with the Department, for doing up traditional farm buildings. There is considerable potential to expand that grant to have traditional farm buildings done up and turned into new units or homes.

However, we feel there is a drawback with that as it is limited, and you have to be in certain schemes like ACRES, freshwater pearl mussel and the hen harrier. It should not matter what scheme a farmer is participating in when it comes to do up these buildings to make them new homes and new units. Another thing mentioned in our opening statement was the help-to-buy scheme. We think this is a great scheme, and we have help-to-buy for new units. We think it should be expanded for purchasing and doing up derelict houses. Once you do this, they will become new homes available for people, which is very important. Planning issues were also mentioned. There are certain issues with the specifications of listed houses that are derelict. We have heard from people across the country and from younger people who have wanted to do up derelict houses on their land or in their area. The specifications have made it unrealistic and uneconomical to do up these homes. They have left it and decided to build a house instead. We are going to see those derelict houses just collapsing. The specifications really need to be looked when it comes to planning permission for doing up derelict homes.