Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I entirely agree with the Taoiseach. It is a matter of supply because much of what the Government is trying to do, and we tried to do in our time, is tinkering with the fundamental issue, namely, that we need to have more houses. One of the early wins we thought we could have is to get the voids back into play. The Taoiseach will recall that in our time in government we put in place a vacant properties programme to turn around council voids. On Friday last, several years after we identified getting voids back into play, as a first priority, we were told €24 million is now being allocated to refurbish 1,400 council voids, including 112 in Cork and 539 in Dublin. How can that still be the case if the whole issue of getting houses back into serviceable use is the No. 1 priority? How is it that such a scale of empty houses is still there to be addressed?

It is suggested by the National Oversight & Audit Commission that some local authorities are leaving units vacant until they assess what central Government will do and they will not use their own resources for that purpose. Those involved in that forum seem to think that local authorities may be purposely delaying the refurbishment of vacant homes to avoid using their own resources. There needs to be a very clear directive from Government, with a clear timeline that the normal turnaround period should be a matter of weeks unless there is very serious refurbishment to be made, and each of those should be individually notified to the Department of Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government. I ask the Taoiseach to deal with the issue as a matter of urgency.

My second question relates to the proposal to allow developers to build on State lands. Perhaps that has great merits but we need to know exactly what lands are going to be used and for what purpose. We need to know what developments are planned and what social good will accrue because developers have been invited to build homes under a licence agreement and there is a variety of other mechanisms to be deployed. We would like to see specific site-by-site programmes to ensure we are getting the best social value because such land needs to be developed in the public interest, hopefully, by local authorities.

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