Cathal Berry (Kildare South, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am delighted to speak on this very important motion on vacant and derelict housing. I pay tribute to Deputy Denis Naughten and our group administrator, Ms Cáit Nic Amhlaoibh, who did most of the heavy lifting in preparing the motion.

I very much support the motion. It provides a comprehensive and detailed blueprint. I endorse all the recommendations it contains. I will highlight three proposals in particular. The first is one which the Minister of State highlighted, namely, that the Government should provide additional resources to tackle the issue of derelict houses. I take his point but the case for investment alone is compelling. From the Government perspective, it is one of minimum input and maximum return. We are all practising Deputies here. We are members of a constructive Opposition. We recognise that there are finite resources in the country. However, every euro put into a derelict house will return five times the amount.

Second, expanding the existing local authority home loan scheme is extremely important, in particular for those with poor credit ratings or low-income households which do not have access to normal banking finance. Introducing a 0% home retrofit loan scheme is also a key component. The Government should engage with the credit union movement. Everyone in the House will be familiar with the movement. It is actively seeking greater community financing options. It is totally on board with this. Any influence the Minister of State can bring to bear in respect of that proposal would be greatly appreciated.

The Minister of State appreciates that housing is a very important and emotive political issue in the country at the moment, and for good reason. If you are not adequately housed, you cannot progress professionally or personally. You are always looking over your shoulder when you are precariously housed and you cannot really develop. It is particularly acute now with the influx of Ukrainian refugees, although it is no fault of theirs. Up to Easter, an expected 30,000 Ukrainians will have come here. That imposes a massive problem on top of an existing one. As with most issues and problems, however, the solution is often under our nose. Vacant and derelict housing is a perfect example. The Minister of State gave a statistic that there were 183,000 vacant properties nationwide according to the previous census. That is staggering. That is six years of housing supply if we can get it reactivated and back on the market. Renovation is the cheapest way to build a house in terms of cost and from a carbon perspective.

I will conclude by mentioning a housing crisis within the housing crisis. The military housing crisis is especially acute in my constituency, Kildare South. Its origins are clear. Some 25 years ago, our Defence Forces had more personnel. In the intervening period, successive Government have closed almost half the military installations across the country. That has caused a military housing crisis.

We now have troops commuting hundreds of kilometres every day and they cannot afford to put fuel in their vehicles. It is especially acute in the Curragh Camp. I am not sure how familiar the Minister of State is with the Curragh but he would be most welcome at any time and I would be happy to show him around. There are more than 50 houses lying derelict in the camp. It is completely unacceptable. They are boarded up. We are familiar with dereliction in every town in Ireland but some of it can be explained as the bank owning the house, or a house being in receivership or awaiting probate. However, these more than 50 houses in the Curragh are all publicly owned, which is staggering. They are owned by the Department of Defence. The Department says it is not its core function to provide housing. I argue against that. If its core function is to provide for the defence and security of the country then it is appropriate that it looks after military families as well. To be fair to the Minister of State's Department, while I accept it should be in the lead in responding to the housing crisis, it should not be exclusively so. Every Government Department should play a supporting role and try to address this issue. I am not sure what the Minister of State's own thoughts are on this but there is room here for an AHB to go to the Department of Defence and offer to take the houses if the Department is happy to offload them and have the housing body provide them to military families on military land. It makes sense as well because it would take military families off the social housing lists and free them up for other families based in garrison towns around the country.

In conclusion, I very much welcome and support this motion. It is very comprehensive and detailed and is a blueprint for addressing the vacant and derelict housing crisis in this country, and in turn assists in tackling the larger housing crisis.

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