Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputies Cowen and Casey for bringing this important Bill to the House today. Sinn Féin fully supports the intention behind the Bill. Whenever we have conversations about vacant properties many of us express a certain degree of frustration. We have somewhere between 90,000 and 189,000 vacant residential units across the State and, as Deputy Cowen rightly pointed out, that does not include the very significant potential that is there to convert retail units to residential. It is almost one and a half years since this Government was formed and we do not have a vacant homes strategy. There are a number of initiatives, but the targets in terms of bringing units back into social or affordable use are very low, and the funding resources allocated to those schemes is nowhere near what is required. Walking through urban centres in the cities, or indeed in parts of rural Ireland, the huge opportunities that are being lost on a daily basis to provide homes for families is obvious.

We have all been speaking about the length of time it takes to get a new building back on track. The most frustrating thing is that while we are waiting for that new building to come on stream, these units provide huge opportunities to provide homes for families in the short term at far lower cost. On that basis the Bill before us today is very welcome and, as Deputy Cowen said, it has been strongly advocated by the Simon Community, the Peter McVerry Trust, by academics who presented at the Oireachtas housing committee, and others.

I also welcome Deputy Cowen's commitment to engaging on Committee Stage to tease out some of the issues that I am going to raise, and indeed which were raised by the Minister. I am raising them not because I believe that they are issues which Deputy Cowen is not attuned to, but if we are to seriously work this piece of legislation through committee we need to make sure that it deals with these things in the most robust manner possible. Without going back over all the ground the Minister outlined I want to put on record those issues which we would welcome more detailed scrutiny on at the pre-legislative stage and formal Committee Stage.

I welcome the fact there is a stronger level of local authority involvement through the amendment to the building control amendment regulations, BCAR, system that is proposed here. That is a good thing, but we have to tease through the implications of that for the certification process very carefully . We need to ensure that not only is there a greater degree of local authority control but also that the inspections are not just limited to registered professionals but could also be carried out by, for example, local authority staff if such a thing was appropriate in the given cases.

We all share a concern that anything we do in terms of fire safety meets the highest possible standards. The Minister made the point well. That is something that needs particular scrutiny at the pre-legislative stage and Committee Stage to ensure that whatever we agree ensures the absolute gold standard in fire safety certification.

I emphasise that there should be no drop in standards. That is particularly important when we talk about sub-division, and we need to ensure that whatever is proposed does not lead to a drop in standards and that the highest possible standards are maintained.

Some consideration should be given not only to an ongoing review of this process but also the possibility of a sunset clause. The reason we are having this discussion is because of the urgency of bringing a potentially large number of vacant units in parts of the country back into use. If these were ordinary circumstances and we had no supply problem we probably would not be discussing such a Bill. Not unlike the fast-track planning process for the strategic housing developments, some kind of an in-built sunset clause would be worth considering on Committee Stage.

Sinn Féin fully supports the intention behind the Bill. I hope that we can bring this to Committee Stage quickly and that there is no foot-dragging. One of the common difficulties with Bills that the Government does not object to is that we never actually get to deal with the substance of them. Given what Deputies have said, if we were to bring this to Committee Stage in a relatively speedy time, go through all the processes and come out with a much more robust piece of legislation, we would do both ourselves and the people we are representing a great service, and people would see that cross-party politics is finally working in the interests of those people who most need houses as opposed to party political interest.

See this speech in context