Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I can be accused of many things but under-ambition is not one of them. I regularly set targets and they are normally pretty ambitious although some of them might not be as ambitious as some Members would like. We will be taking the same approach on this. We will set ambitious targets and then go after them as best we can. This will put many people under pressure but I see this as a way of getting many properties back into use quickly. It is a really good deal for property owners too. Basically, somebody else will take charge of the property, get a tenant in, manage the tenancy and do any necessary upgrade work and at the end of the tenancy period, the property owner will have a more valuable property and will have had a decent rental income from it in the meantime. This is a win, win situation.

The official figures indicate that there are approximately 200,000 vacant properties, excluding holiday homes. Many of those will not be accessible through this scheme but even if a fraction are, we can get thousands of properties back into use. The question is how fast we can do it.

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