Peter Fitzpatrick (Louth, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to contribute and I thank my colleagues in the Regional Group for tabling this motion before the House. Over the past number of years, I have lost count of the amount of times I have raised the issue of vacant homes in my constituency of Louth. You can walk through any residential area in Dundalk and be sure to see vacant homes. It is clear that this is a problem in every county.

In tabling this motion, we in the Regional Group want to highlight the problem while also offering real solutions to the Government. The bottom line is that housing should be affordable and available. Unfortunately, it is neither. Since 2015, national house prices have risen by more than 35%. In 2021 alone, prices rose by more than 14%. This year, a survey has revealed that house prices are rising at €100 per day. To put that in context, that is more than €36,000 in a year. This is not sustainable. When we look at rents, we see that they are 40% above the pre-crisis levels in Dublin and 20% higher in the rest of the country. In my home town of Dundalk, house rents are simply out of reach for most families.

In tabling this motion, we in the Regional Group want to highlight the potential that vacant properties, if developed properly, could have for tackling the housing crisis. The GeoDirectory residential buildings report has highlighted that there are more than 90,000 vacant dwellings across the country and that more than 22,000 residential addresses are classified as derelict. The Northern and Western Regional Assembly's latest report on regional vacancy and dereliction has shown that there are almost 45,000 empty residential and commercial properties in the west, north west and Border area. Nearly three quarters of the towns and villages in the region have recorded a residential vacancy rate above the national average.

Our motion also highlights the issues that the fair deal nursing home support scheme has created. Every year, up to 4,500 people leave behind empty homes when they enter into long-term nursing home care, but only 400 of these homes are subsequently rented out. The reason for this is simple. The scheme charges an older person three separate times if he or she rents out his or her home.

My colleagues in the Regional Group and I are looking for cross-party support for the motion. We feel that it will offer real solutions to the housing crisis while bringing back into the stock the many thousands of vacant and derelict homes in our towns and villages. We are calling on the Government to provide once and for all the necessary resources to regenerate the derelict and vacant properties in our towns, villages and cities. We want a change to the repair-and-leasing scheme that is being operated by the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage so as to remove the test for social housing in the area, which would immediately release additional housing for social needs and private renters. We are also calling on the Government to provide a first-time buyer's grant of at least €30,000 for the refurbishment of vacant and derelict houses. We want an extension of the help-to-buy scheme to first-time buyers of second-hand and vacant homes. We need to see the local authority home loan scheme being expanded to include refurbishment costs in addition to the purchase costs. We need a Government-supported 0% loan scheme for retrofitting homes where the repayments are made through the utility companies in the form of reduced energy costs.

We also need the Government to engage with the Irish League of Credit Unions to establish an interest-free loan scheme for home retrofitting. The Government must look at incentivising the development of clustered bungalow housing close to services for our older generation, which would allow them to downsize and will in turn free up family homes. We need to remove the financial barrier in the fair deal nursing home scheme to renting out a property which, again, would release vacant family homes in our towns, villages and cities. We also call on the Government to review housing grant limits due to the dramatic rise in construction costs.

The Government has consistently called on Members to engage with it and work together to help solve the housing crisis. The Regional Group believes that our motion offers real solutions to the Government. We are not trying to play party politics but only trying to offer real solutions to a very real problem. I call on all Deputies to fully support our motion. I look forward to working with each and every one of them in order to find a solution.

The Minister of State has been doing the rounds over the past number of weeks. He visited County Louth last week. When he hands a family the keys to a house, whether it is a social house, council house or whatever, he sees that there is nothing better and it is all families want. I do not know what is going on with the Government at present but we should put more emphasis on building more houses. As the Minister of State knows, we have a lot of land in County Louth that can be used to build houses. I welcome that he came to County Louth last week. I hope he spoke to those in the local authorities there and that he will come back again.

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