Danny Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)

I am glad to get the opportunity to be here and thank the witnesses for coming. Some of the issues I will raise I have already raised several times in the Dáil Chamber. It is sad when I do not see a response coming.

When we talk about vacancy and dereliction, how to deal with it and how to sort it out, we must look back at how it began or why it happened. To me, our streetscapes and townscapes got affected when local authorities and Government policy at the time gave planning to multinational supermarket companies to build a big retail estate outside of towns. That took the footfall out of towns and it took away the problem of parking for the customers. You can drive practically to the door of any Tesco, Dunnes or any of these shops and park there because they have their own parking and you will not be caught by the traffic warden or anything. It will not be a problem.

This is why most of our towns and villages have disintegrated.

In relation to the residential side of it, there is no impetus or onus, and no kind of incentive, for people with a second house. I have several times given the example that, from Kenmare town through Kilgarvan and down to within seven miles of Killarney, there have been 55 houses vacant on the side of the road for as long as I can remember now. You could step out of the houses onto the bus. There is a bus going both ways every half hour into Killarney. You could not ask for more. There are connections then on to Cork and everywhere else. There are two reasons the owners will not rent out the houses. One has to do with the laws that are there now, whereby the RTB favours the tenant and the owners are afraid they cannot get their houses back when they need them. This is paramount and needs to be sorted out. The other reason is that we have to realise that, in those cases, a landlord may only get €1,000 or €1,100 a month for the house. These owners might have other jobs and if they rent out the properties, they will pay half of what they get in tax. They are left with maybe €500 to deal with all the bills and to keep the house in order. This is the gospel truth. They do not see that it as worth their while because they are treated in the 50% tax bracket. In other countries, there is a residential tax of 20% and it has nothing to do with the income tax. We need to adopt something like that, or what would be way better would be to give them what is available to Ukrainians, where people get €600 for a house tax free and the Government is actually paying it. I would see nothing wrong with tenants paying it. Tenants looking for places to rent are in a bay way and many of them would be glad to pay the €600 themselves but the landlord needs to get it tax free. If they get more for the houses, then all right, and let them pay the tax on the extra amount. I am only asking about what the witnesses' views are. Am I mad or is there sense in what I am saying? Do we think it should be explored?