Cian O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Regional Group for bringing forward this motion, which I broadly support. The motion addresses the relevant issue of vacant properties. I will make one comment on the motion that I mean in a constructive sense. The motion proposes a long list of incentives and measures but it omits other measures that we know from international experience are effective in dealing with vacancy, such as a tax on vacant buildings and vacant homes that are not put into use. We also need those sorts of measures.

I am fully aware that many people who own vacant properties do not have the resources, wherewithal or finances to renovate, refurbish and retrofit them and so forth. However, the context is that there are almost 10,000 people living in emergency accommodation. There are 120,000 people on social housing waiting lists and living in insecure housing assisting payment, HAP, tenancies. We cannot tolerate a situation where there are more than 90,000 vacant homes in this country. We must apply a range of measures.

Every building that is built benefits from public investment in infrastructure and a societal investment. Those buildings cannot be left to lie idle. They cannot be wasted, year after year. There should be more supports in place but if people who own vacant properties do not have the means to deal with the issue, the appropriate thing is for them to sell the property in order that it can be put into use. Measures are needed in that regard. We need to disincentivise holding onto vacant buildings.

The GeoDirectory report gives the most up-to-date figures on vacancy. It said that in quarter 2 of 2021, there were 92,135 vacant homes. In addition, there were 22,754 derelict homes and 28,756 vacant commercial buildings. These figures are much lower than those from the Central Statistics Office, CSO, but they are more up to date. It is worth noting that the GeoDirectory figures only consider homes that no longer accept post as being vacant. That is how it defines vacancy. It does not separately count apartments in buildings with fewer than five apartments.

Vacancy, as we all know, is a terrible waste. It sends a terrible message to the thousands of people struggling without a home and to those paying high rents who are struggling to keep a home. Those things have impacts on people's mental health and on communities and their well-being. It is a problem across Ireland. It is a significant problem in rural areas but we also know from the CSO that 64% of vacant homes, according to the 2016 census, were in urban areas. There is a particular problem with vacancy in town centres. The Heritage Council, in its land use survey, found a vacancy rate in Tralee, for example, of 25%. The figure for Tipperary town was 31%. These are shockingly high ground-floor vacancy rates. It is a shocking level of wastage.

Not only do we have a housing crisis, we also have a climate change crisis and we must address both. Addressing vacancy is part of the solution. There is an urgency to this matter. I do not need to tell the Minister of State because he knows that to be the case. We have no time to wait to address the climate change crisis. It is now or never, as was stated by the most recent report from the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. If we do not take urgent action now, it will be impossible to limit temperature rises to 1.5°C, which will have catastrophic effects. However, we still do not see urgency from the Government to tackle vacancy. We do not see the vacant homes tax that is needed, and which was needed yesterday. We have a housing crisis and a climate crisis. We are wasting these vacant buildings containing embodied carbon and yet this Government is not bringing in a tax on vacant homes. Why not? Where is it? Why has it not been brought in? How can the Government justify not doing so in the face of the climate and housing emergencies?

We know in respect of embodied carbon and the construction industry that 11% of global emissions are associated with upfront embodied CO2 emissions from new construction. That is a significant amount of global emissions. According to the Irish Green Building Council, carbon emissions from the construction process in Ireland account for 11% of our annual carbon emissions. That is a sizeable figure. Some 50 tonnes of carbon emissions can be generated when new homes are built, compared to 15 tonnes when existing homes are refurbished. According to World Habitat, in most houses it can take more than 50 years for operational energy use to balance out the emissions created in their construction. Demolition and construction created 8.8 million tonnes of waste in Ireland in 2019, accounting for 63% of the waste generated, which is a considerable proportion. Only 6.8% was recycled and very little was reused.

We know that the most sustainable building is always an existing building. Despite this, we have no regulations regarding embedded carbon in buildings and no definitive plans in that regard. While the Government is bringing forward a welcome Bill on circularity and reuse, it includes an incredible exemption for construction and demolition waste so it will not be levied if it goes to landfill or incineration. The Minister of State knows we have a climate crisis. How can he justify those measures and their massive impact on the environment? Those measures also impact people who need housing. This is not in any way tolerable.

Excellent work is being done by Ms Jude Sherry and Dr. Frank O'Connor in Anois. Not only are they highlighting vacancy and dereliction but they are also highlighting meanwhile use and what can be done in that regard. They have an excellent report on the topic and I recommend that the Minister of State reads it. In the report, they share good examples of meanwhile use from Amsterdam, Glasgow, Denmark, Italy and other countries, and they outline how important that is to reduce vacancy, to get life back into town centres and to provide space for the arts, culture and communities. They point out, quite correctly, that it was a meanwhile use approach that made Temple Bar take off years ago and put vibrancy back into the area.

We have an issue with ground-floor vacancy in newer developments, those built over the past ten to 15 years. There has been a lack of action in that regard. Those vacant properties need to be brought into meanwhile use to bring life back into those areas. We need to be looking at the good example of Scotland where the town centre empty homes project is a hybrid of grants and loans that brings vacant buildings back into use for affordable housing, either to rent or buy. The incentives around vacancy introduced by this Government are not fully aligned with affordability like they are in Scotland.

We urgently need the vacant homes tax now. We need the Derelict Sites Act and compulsory purchase order powers to be used to their full extent. We also need to bring in measures such as compulsory sales orders and compulsory rental orders in order that all our stock is brought into full use to address our housing crisis.

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