Frances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Government plans are ambitious and funded. The Government recognises the significant challenges facing the housing market in Ireland. That is why we brought forward Rebuilding Ireland - Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness, which sets out a very practical and absolutely readily implementable set of time-based actions. This is what we are actually doing. It is a plan that will deliver for people by addressing the shortage of affordable housing, rising rents and the unacceptable high levels of homelessness. The reason we need to have Rebuilding Ireland is because of the disastrous and catastrophic policies which were followed previously and which led to the unprecedented property crash, for which we will be paying well into the future. This Government and that which preceded have acted on these issues.. We have been putting the money aside to deal with them and there has been practical and detailed engagement by the Minister, Deputy Coveney, and the Minister of State, Deputy English, with local authorities to ensure that housing will come on stream. That work is certainly under way.

I will now turn to the issue of the national vacant housing re-use strategy. First, as Deputy Ó Broin is aware, there is already a commitment to compile a register of vacant units across the State to identify the number, location and reasons for longer-term vacancies, that is units vacant for over six months in high-demand areas. There is a range of actions already being undertaken by the Government to bring those vacant houses back into use. The Housing Agency is due to report back on this measure within weeks.

Having said that, I wish to congratulate the Peter McVerry Trust for all the work it does. The trust is hosting a conference today at which it will be highlighting particular issues and also the measures designed to bring vacant properties into use. We will look at the range of recommendations that will emerge by the conference. A number of initiatives are already in place which are designed to bring vacant properties back into use. There is the buy-and-renew initiative, which facilitates local authorities to purchase and renew housing units in need of remediation and make them available for social housing. That initiative has funding of €25 million in 2017 and €50 million for next year. There is also the purchase by the Housing Agency of vacant buy-to-let properties on the portfolios of financial institutions and investor for use as social housing. There is funding of €70 million in place for that measure. There is a range of measures already in place. The vacant site levy will be charged from 2018 onwards, with the first bills being collected in 2019. The vacant site levy will ensure that the levy will be charged at the rate of 3% of the market value of the site. I mention this because it is associated. There are many initiatives already being implemented in order to ensure that those vacant houses come back into use. Every local authority is already working on that.

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