Michael Collins (Cork South West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak on this Bill. I have spoken in this Chamber many times about the current housing crisis. We need to relieve pressure from people who fear homelessness. I plead with the Minister to take solid action. With a staggering number of children living either on our streets or in emergency accommodation, it is important that we make provisions to protect their family unit and their childhood as much as possible. The emergency accommodation available for these families is neither safe nor sufficient for the huge demands that exist. We owe a huge debt to the various charities, such as Focus Ireland, the Simon Community and the Fr. Peter McVerry Trust, that assist the homeless community throughout the country on a daily basis. In the current climate, tenants are finding it extremely difficult to source adequate accommodation as a result of a lack of supply and high demand.

According to census 2016, some 260,000 houses throughout the State are vacant. Common sense dictates that these houses could go a long way towards solving the immediate housing crisis. In order to achieve this, the building control and regulation process must be changed if we are to fast track the utilisation of these vacant or derelict buildings. My constituency in Cork South-West has many of these types of buildings. Throughout every town I travel I see these houses, some even without roofs on them, and there is no law on it; they are just left there. If a few slates fall to the ground they get a letter and no more. The buildings should be confiscated from people after so many years if they are not using them.

There is a pattern of vacant above-the-shop units in every city, town and village. These units could be refurbished to provide much need residential dwellings. During the discussions on housing in the talks for the formation of Government in 2016, I raised awareness of this issue and gave the example of my home town of Schull in West Cork where very few families live over commercial premises. This trend, which has been occurring over the past 20 years, has impacted very negatively on our towns and villages such as Ballinee, Eyeries, Goleen, Kilcrohane, Kealkill, Drimoleague, Timoleague, Durrus, Ballydehob and Schull. I have spoken at length of a regeneration programme for these small rural towns and villages and the ability to rebuild these communities. I proposed that we should encourage families to take up residence over shops and commercial units by offering refurbishment grants. This would help in some small way in easing the housing pressure and it would promote the survival of our rural towns and villages.

The Minister and the Government have done little to fix the current housing crisis. On a regular basis we see new motions from all ends of the Opposition introduced as an effort to tackle the housing crisis but we have seen little action on the Minister's side of the House. I hope the Government will act to relieve the current housing crisis and take my recommendations into account as a way of addressing this crisis.

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