John Brassil (Kerry, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

One matter is the improvement work in lieu of housing programme. This applied to families who had inherited a property from a family member but the property was not fit to live in. The local authority would do up the house, the family on the housing list would occupy it and over a period of five, ten, 15 or 20 years they would repay the money that was spent on refurbishing the house. That solved a problem for that family. To my knowledge that scheme has been dormant for at least eight years. I ask the Minister to reintroduce it immediately as it would get a number of families off the list, particularly in my constituency.

The second issue is that, according to the latest local property tax register, there are over 400 estates where property tax is not being paid because they are unfinished and require work to be done on them. There are probably a number of unoccupied properties in all those estates. My low-water estimate is that there are between 3,000 and 5,000 houses in the country that have been built but have yet to be occupied. A small level of investment would put those properties on the market. It is another area where the Minister could get people off the housing list. The properties are tied up in NAMA, the banks and in distressed mortgages. I ask the Minister to establish a specific task force in each county to assess the number of those properties and get them occupied immediately.

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