Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputies for raising the various issues. In the first instance, the Minister for Defence, Deputy Coveney, has been dealing and having engagements with the Women of Honour representative group. As Deputy Clarke said, I understand there will be further engagement shortly. Regarding the issues the Deputy raised, it would seem that on the face of the evidence and what has been put forward, there could in some instances be a case for criminal investigations in terms of the abuse that took place. To have a statutory or investigative inquiry that is outside of the normal processes of criminal investigation could potentially undermine such investigations. That said, I am open to engaging with the group. I want to see what transpires with the Minister and the group first. My understanding is that things were progressing for a while. The Government is prepared to continue the engagement.

If there are certain desired outcomes, which I think there are, people who commit abuse should be followed up on. The Deputy was talking about the investigative powers and the compelling of people to give evidence, which takes it out of the hands - if there was wrongdoing - of the Garda Síochána and any processes that it would engage in. That is something we would need to assess.

On Deputy O’Callahan’s point, I dealt earlier with some of the cases he raised regarding vacant properties and dereliction. The Minister for Finance, Deputy Donohue, through the local property tax, LTP, review is doing some valuable work in collecting information on vacant properties, with a view to designing a proper vacant property tax. The Government is committed to a vacant property tax. That is important in our view. We have to get it right. We have to design it right. We have to get a far better understanding of the vacant properties out there, the types of such properties and so on. Through the LPT process, which is extremely comprehensive, the Minister for Finance will be in a position to make recommendations in that respect.

Meanwhile, on the social housing side, 5,500 units have brought back since this Government came to office. We provided additional money, beginning with the July stimulus of 2020, to get thousands of void houses in local authority ownership back in operation. In 2022, a further 1,500 voids will be brought back into operation as a result of funding that has been provided by Minister of Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Deputy Darragh O’Brien. It is important that this continues, because we do not want to necessary vacancies. There are other issues we are looking at also, for example, nursing home legislation, to see if we can free up more units are vacant because people have gone into nursing homes. All efforts will be made to deal with the vacancy issue. As I said earlier, there has been a 40% year-on-year increase in commencements for housing. This is good news, especially in the context of the momentum that has gone into house building since the last lockdown in the first half of 2021. The latter hit construction somewhat, but we are now at 30,724 commencements.

On Deputy Boyd Barrett’s points, I was not rubbishing any report. It is important that we analyse reports and raise issues relating to them. It is also important that we go through reports with the authors and work issues out. It is not deliberate that there is no comprehensive data on wealth distribution. Again, there are questions around the figures. That is all I am saying. Let us park that for a moment. We have wealth taxes in Ireland. We have the capital gains tax of 33%, as well as the capital acquisitions tax. We have the LPT. Property is where a lot of wealth resides. Deputy Boyd Barrett opposes that, I think-----.

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