Alan Shatter (Dublin South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the recent meeting Deputies Daly and Wallace had with officials from my Department on the issue. I hope the exchange of views and the explanations given were helpful and worthwhile from their perspective.

As I have said previously, military personnel are obliged, under Defence Forces regulations, to vacate married quarters within 21 days of retiring or being discharged from military service. The term "overholder" is used to describe former members of the Defence Forces and their families who have refused to leave married quarters when obliged to do so.

The situation of overholders continuing to occupy married quarters is no longer sustainable and measures to resolve this are being progressed. Properties located outside barracks are offered for sale to the occupants. Those located within barracks, such as the Curragh camp, are not for sale for security reasons. My Department is, in accordance with normal procedures, seeking vacant possession of married quarters which are being overheld and will continue to do so until the overholding issue is resolved. Any initiative to resolve overholding must support and complement the current policy, which dates back to 1997, of withdrawing from the provision of married quarters.

In the period since January 2013, 12 properties which were being overheld in the area of the Curragh camp have been returned by the occupants. Currently, there are 28 overholders remaining at the camp and ten of these do not pay any charges in respect of their use of the property.

I cannot support the illegal occupation of military property by those who have no entitlement. It is also important to remember that the Department of Defence does not have a role in the provision of housing accommodation for the general public and cannot provide housing for people who have no entitlement to housing provided from the public purse and whose requirement is likely to be significant, as the currently unoccupied properties are for the most part uninhabitable, with many in extremely poor condition.

In any event, the assessment of the current vacant housing stock does not change the fact that there are occupiers of houses in the Curragh camp who have no right to those houses and, therefore, the process for obtaining vacant possession must continue.

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