Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Vacant social houses, which are categorised as voids, need far greater repairs than normal reletting works to bring them to a suitable letting condition. They are vacant pending that work. Strong funding support has been given to all local authorities to remediate vacant social housing so the homes involved can be let again as soon as possible. This Exchequer funding is in addition to the funding provided by local authorities to bring vacant properties back into use. The works that are carried out focus on returning vacant social homes to use as quickly as possible and on remediation work that brings long-term benefits. Insulation retrofitting, for example, means that when a house is let again, it has high levels of comfort and reduced heating costs for the incoming tenant. Almost €100 million in Exchequer funding has been made available to local authorities since the introduction of the voids programme. Over 8,000 homes have been remediated since 2014. The number of vacant homes returned to productive use was 2,696 in 2015 and 2,090 in 2016. The number of vacant homes returned to productive use so far in 2017 is 1,228. In addition to vacant social homes, there is a regular turnover of short-term vacancies in the social housing stock of local authorities. A modest amount of work is needed in such cases. In general, such vacancies are addressed by local authorities from their own resources.

See this speech in context