Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I was a part of the discussion on this matter on Committee Stage. We have also tabled an amendment. Like Deputy Doherty, I welcome the fact that the Government has acceded to the suggestion that we need a report on a vacant home tax. I will not press our amendment, as the Minister has tabled one, but urgency is critical. I said something on Committee Stage that bears repeating, given that the Minister and the Department will decide how fast to move on this matter. It is immoral that there are, according to the CSO, 180,000 empty units when we are facing a shocking and appalling housing and homelessness crisis. Something that might not be underlined enough is that, also according to the CSO, 65,000 of those houses have been empty for five years.

Deputy McGrath cites, and the Minister probably cited them as well on Committee Stage, complexities and various reasons these units are empty. I accept that, but I do not accept 180,000 units being empty when there are people dying on the streets. That is more unacceptable than a few unintended consequences of the measures taken to deal with it. The crisis is beyond any kind of excuse in light of the hardship and suffering it is imposing on people.

The main priority is to get people who have no place to live into properties that are sitting empty. I do not believe that a vacant home tax is the only solution to this, given that more needs to be done, but it may be part of the solution. We must find out the status of every empty unit, particularly in areas where the crisis is most acute in terms of homelessness, housing lists that are a decade or more long and where there is nothing available for people on ordinary incomes to rent or buy, and get as many of those units as possible into use as a matter of urgency.

While I welcome the Minister's decision to insert an amendment along the lines of the Opposition's proposal, it needs to happen quickly, and the wider issue of determining the status of those vacant units and doing everything that is necessary to get people who need homes into them should be a priority for the Government.

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