Dáil debates

Thursday, 14 April 2016

7:25 pm

Photo of John BrassilJohn Brassil (Kerry, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

As it is my first opportunity to address this House, I thank the people of Kerry for giving me the honour of representing them in the Thirty-second Dáil and I hope I do them justice. I equally thank Deputy Cassells for giving me the opportunity to share his time.

The housing crisis is slightly different in different parts of the country, so I will focus on where I am, in Kerry, a rural county. Several speakers have mentioned the enormous amount of empty houses in County Kerry and many other rural counties. In the last census in Kerry, excluding holiday homes, there were 10,000 empty houses. That would go a long way to solving the problem. The Minister is looking for constructive proposals. We should look at a town and village renewal scheme because in many of our towns and villages every second or third house is empty. The original occupants have moved on and the sons and daughters are living elsewhere, and those houses are lying empty and with some investment could be made habitable very quickly. I ask the Minister to consider a grant scheme whereby the owners would be incentivised to do up empty properties. The condition of the grant would be that those houses would then be made available to the local authority on a long-term lease scheme, thereby ensuring that any investment made by the owner would come back in the form of rent and ensuring a quick turnaround and short-term gain in tackling the housing crisis. The housing list would benefit, the village or town would benefit from having renewed vibrancy and the economy would benefit from having construction, and that would be immediate.

I ask the Minister to consider a similar scheme for unused local authority houses, where again the original occupants have moved on and the houses are lying there with no incentive for anybody to do anything with them. We need to incentivise these situations. The houses are there and we can do something about it. I also think that a separate approach is needed for homelessness and housing. Homelessness is a new crisis that has come about in the last number of years. In situations where families are on the housing list for ten to 12 years and somebody else suddenly becomes homeless, who gets priority? Do the local authorities have direction on how to go and where to go with this issue? We need to give them direction.

Regarding NAMA, can we acquire houses back from the vulture funds? It was mentioned recently on a programme hosted by Claire Byrne. Is this factual and is it possible? If it is, we should consider it. NAMA was set up to solve a problem, not to create another one, so joined-up thinking is needed between the Department, NAMA, the local authorities, the lending institutions and the Construction Industry Federation, and a combination of measures is needed. One thing is certain: in many areas we have an adequate number of houses; we need to adopt measures to get people living in them.

My experience, having been a member of a local authority for 16 years, is that when money is made available to local authorities there is a problem spending and getting authorisation. If one wants to so much as buy a door, the amount of red tape that has to be gone through is unacceptable. I ask the Minister to get the city and county managers together with his Department officials and unbind this red tape. It is a problem and it needs to be sorted.

Comments

No comments

Log in or join to post a public comment.