Fergus O'Dowd (Louth, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am making it absolutely crystal clear that we need action on the empty homes. In Dublin alone there are over 30,000 empty homes. I know hundreds of them. I see them every day. They are empty, boarded up and families are camping outside local authority housing offices waiting to get in. Families living in cars is a shame and a disgrace. What do we do? What is the practical solution? There is one that is working in County Louth where the council has set up a unit that is tackling boarded-up, empty homes. It has been doing this for some months. Over 50 houses which were empty and boarded up are back in commission.

The council used compulsory purchase orders, CPO, which cost less than €1,000 in each case to do the legal work. The average compensation paid was €55,000. The average compensation paid post-CPO was €15,000. The average refurbishment cost of these homes was €48,382 and the valuation of the properties before they went in was approximately €40,000. Those are the facts and families are now in homes that were boarded up. Let us tackle this around the country and bring the example of County Louth to every constituency and into the heart of Dublin city. Louth did it and the Department of Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government supported it. Let us consider what we can do in Dublin city. To tackle the empty homes, the council must first appoint empty homes officers. This was done in Bolton in England, which has a population of 250,000. In the past year, over a six month period, it put 625 empty homes back into commission.

That means people living in houses, not protesting or living in tents but moving in. That is what we need to do. We need to change the planning laws. We also need to make change-of-use arrangements for business areas that are derelict.

There has been nobody living in the centres of our cities and towns for yonks. Houses are empty and properties are almost demolished. Let us get in there and do it. It has been done in County Louth and I believe the Minister has the capacity to do it. There are incentives. I agree with incentives to have people live over shops. According to the censuses of 1901 and 1911, every single town centre was populated by large numbers of families, but there is nobody in those homes now. I agree with having a new living city initiative for towns such as Drogheda and Dundalk. Let us incentivise the reconstruction and refurbishment of town centre properties. Provided they meet fire and sanitary regulations, we should work within the existing physical structures of the buildings, many of which are old, but we should be able to put families, single persons, childless couples or whoever else into them. We can do it and it can be done if we have the will. I believe the Minister has it.

The Peter McVerry Trust is doing a fantastic job and we should hold up its work to national examination and support. There are lots of agencies doing excellent work and the Minister is the person to bring them together to get the action we so badly need. There has been a huge failure on the part of local authorities and the Environment Department has failed miserably in the past. The Housing Agency has also failed. NAMA offered over 6,200 homes to local authorities around the country, but not more than 2,500 were taken up, which is both a shame and a disgrace. The agencies must be put to the pin of their collar to ensure change.

We have the carrot of incentivisation for landlords who are doing very well in most cases. Never have they had more money for less value. Families are being absolutely crucified by increases in rents. Some places are not within the system of rent control, including Drogheda, which is wrong and needs to change. Alongside the tax incentives for landlords, we must tackle the empty homes crisis by putting a tax on empty homes that fit into specific categories such as being in rent pressure zones such as Dublin city or areas such as Drogheda which are not rent pressure zones but which have seen very significant additional increases in the last six quarters. If we were to tax empty homes, particularly those that are not principal private residences and not subject to legislation or other issues such as family legal disputes, it could result in thousands of homes being put back on the market. I believe the Minister and the new Taoiseach have the will to do so. I ask them to make use of our initiative and the ideas we bring to them.

A lot of this Dáil stuff makes it a talking shop. The housing committee is also a talking shop, if one can get in to talk at it. I was not able to do so the last day when the Chairman very kindly left me out, although he had allowed everybody else in. The Minister was present, but I did not have the opportunity to share my wisdom with him. That left me very cross, but now I have made my protest and my six minutes are nearly up. We need to be listened to. We have damn good ideas and know the way forward. We can help the Minister to achieve what all families and the nation want, namely, a country in which families' needs will be treated adequately, fairly and objectively. The Minister has the vision and we can provide him with the way to implement it. Let us do it together.

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