Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

That is the first time that I have heard about the time capsule section. I think that in the time capsule section on my form, I will ask the people who are still here in 100 years whether 100 years of Government has managed to sort out the housing crisis. I fear we may well find that it has not. I wonder if the Government will have even managed the review of the social housing income threshold. Indeed, the reason I asked the question is because of the more immediate issue of the housing crisis. When I submitted a question before Christmas on the issue, the Minister of State informed me, if I understand him correctly, that in the questions to be asked in the census, we will still not get a count of derelict buildings in the country. I was unaware of that previously. That seems to me to be an extraordinary waste of an opportunity to ascertain the facts on one of the biggest issues facing this country that is directly related to whether we can actually solve the housing crisis in any sort of serious timeframe. It is a scandal beyond scandals how many derelict buildings there are in towns, villages and cities the length and breadth of this country and for us not to have a count of them. I know that in the last census there was a count of vacant buildings, but we need a count of derelict buildings. If I understand the Minister of State's answer correctly, given that the questions were set and finally signed off in 2019, surely the severity of the housing crisis and the importance of establishing the number of derelict houses means we should put a supplementary question into the census to help get that information.

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