Brendan Griffin (Kerry, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I commend Deputy O'Connor on submitting his question. It was specific to Cork city and county but it is an issue throughout the country, as he quite rightly pointed out. There is a great opportunity in the budget in two weeks' time to help address this issue and a number of measures could be implemented. One such measure I feel strongly about relates to the thousands of properties people are sitting on throughout the country. There is no incentive for them to go to market and the supply just is not there. The Government could give a generous window in respect of, for example, capital gains tax where someone sells to a first-time buyer, for a certain period, namely, a year and a half or two years, in order to get the properties on the market. It could also help that first-time buyer with schemes such as the home renovation incentive, HRI, scheme or help-to-buy in respect of such properties. That could get an awful lot of new units into the market very quickly and get very positive results. There are thousands these units throughout the country and it is an absolute shame, in the midst of a severe housing crisis, that this is happening.

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