Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Chairman of our committee, Deputy Matthews, not only for chairing the sessions that led to this report but also because it was, in fact, his proposition to the committee to do a dedicated series of public hearings and to produce this report, not only because it is an important matter for him but also because he knew it was also an issue of significant concern to ourselves.

I also acknowledge that it was a very collegiate series of engagements where there was a great deal of cross-party and cross-Government and Opposition support for the recommendations that are in front of us here today. That speaks to the importance of this issue both as a constituency issue for many of us in our electoral areas in respect of the centrality of tackling vacancy to deal with the housing crisis and with the regeneration of our villages, towns and city centres, and crucially, as outlined by Deputy Matthews, in playing a very important part in addressing the carbon footprint of residential development, particularly in the context of the upcoming sectoral emissions targets that will apply as much to the embodied carbon of the built environment as anything else.

Before I comment on the report in front of us, it is important we reflect a little bit upon where we have come from in the past five years because the previous Government's housing plan, Rebuilding Ireland, had an entire section, one of its five pillars, dedicated to tackling the scourge of vacancy. Deputy Coveney, who was the then Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government, went much further than that and produced an entire document and strategy with a very long list of proposals and measures to tackle the issue of vacancy. Yet here we are, five years on with a change of Government and all the targets that were in that section of Rebuilding Ireland, together with those in Deputy Coveney's vacant homes strategy, have been missed. The level of vacancy in our cities, towns and villages is the same as it was back in 2016, whether one looks at the census, GeoDirectory or any other measure. The three key funding streams that were introduced by the previous Government - repair and lease, buy and renew, and the rolling €80 million Housing Agency fund - all missed their targets by a colossal amount. We have had a tiny amount of vacancy brought back into use through those schemes, despite the very ambitious claims made by the Government at the time.

The reason I say this is not to dwell on the past, but if we want to ensure we do not repeat those mistakes, we have to understand what the problems were. Repair and lease was a very badly designed scheme. It did not address the varying costs of vacancy in different cities. It worked in Waterford because property prices were much lower and refurbishment levels were also lower but it was never a viable option in Dublin. Buy and renew was the same. It worked very successfully in Louth, albeit from a low base, but in the large urban centres of Cork, Dublin and elsewhere, again the allocations of funding were insufficient. The Housing Agency rolling fund of €80 million was too slow and bureaucratic and did not meet any of its targets.

Crucially, despite the fact the principles underlying all three schemes were positive, there was no stick to go with the carrot. Former Deputy Eoghan Murphy, as people will remember, when he was appointed as Minister by the then Taoiseach, Deputy Varadkar, was given three tasks, one of which was to explore the introduction of a vacant property tax. The Government commissioned an expensive consultant to produce a report for the Department of Finance. No housing policy expertise was brought to bear in that report, the report recommended not to proceed with the tax and the idea was quietly dropped. The lesson from that is that you cannot work with the carrot alone. There must be a penalty for people who wilfully sit on vacant properties. I have said over and over again that wilfully sitting on a vacant property for no good reason at the height of housing crisis is akin to hoarding food in a famine. It should not be allowed and there should be a heavy penalty. The sooner that happens, the better.

I have some concerns about the current Government’s housing plan and I hope the Government and the lead Minister reflects carefully on these cross-party recommendations because, notwithstanding the list of measures the Minister of State has just outlined, the actual target for returning vacant units back into active residential use in the Government’s housing plan are incredibly modest, especially when you think that the most reliable dataset that we have of the current level of vacancy, limited and all that it is, is GeoDirectory, which estimates there are approximately 90,000 vacant properties throughout the State. Yet, between Croí Cónaithe towns, the full details of which we still do not know, and the use of local authority compulsory purchase orders, CPOs, we might be looking at perhaps 5,000 units being brought back into active use from vacancy and dereliction from now until 2025, which is far too small a proportion.

It is deeply disappointing the Minister, Deputy O’Brien, is repeating the same misrepresentation of what are called voids as Eoghan Murphy did. There are virtually no voids left in the local authority housing stock. Anyone who knows their own local authority will know that. The so-called voids programme the Minister constantly refers to is actually a top-up fund for casual relets. When someone moves out of an existing council property, and because of the age of the property it costs more than the standard amount to refurbish, the Department provides an additional sum of money to ensure there is no delay in the casual reletting of that property. Presenting these properties as voids, however, is almost like saying mysteriously, every year, there are several thousand long-term vacant social housing units being brought back into stock. This is not true. The Minister, Deputy O’Brien, was as critical of Eoghan Murphy as I am of the Minister, Deputy O’Brien, now when Eoghan Murphy used this same misrepresentation. I urge the Minister to be more honest with people about that particular measure.

With respect to the recommendations here, I would like to pick out the few I believe are most important. The very fact there is a range of recommendations means there is equal weighting from committee members, but I would like to state the number of actions which are absolutely key. One of the things that worries me about the current Government’s housing plan, and indeed with the Minister of State, Deputy Noonan’s recitation of some of the measures, is that if there are too many measures, we do not focus on the very important ones and not as much gets done. If there are a smaller number of higher priority actions, a greater level of vacancy can be addressed.

The first issue is the data and, in fairness, both Deputy Matthews and the Minister of State, Deputy Noonan, mentioned this. We have to do what Scotland has done. We had very good testimony from expert academics from UCD as to the success of Scotland's methodology for counting vacancy, for separating out the different kinds of vacancy, and filtering that information down to the relevant local agency or authority so it knows not just the total number of vacant properties but also where they are, what they are and which ones can be actively brought into use.

That we are five or six years from Rebuilding Ireland and are still asking for that data is a shame. The Government should undertake the exercise as a matter of urgency. In her presentation to the committee, Ms Orla Murphy set out very clearly what it should look like. That is starting point number one.

Second, it makes no sense for the State to invest, albeit too modestly, in my view, in social and affordable housing and not have specific targets for the delivery of social and affordable housing from vacant and derelict stock. If we are going to deliver 9,000 or 10,000 social homes a year and 2,000 to 4,000 affordable homes as per the Government's housing plan, then a percentage should be from vacant sites. It would differ from local authority to local authority because of the nature of their stock but overall it should be 20% to 25% of all new public house building. Local authorities respond to strict targets and we have to integrate that into our public house building programme as a matter of urgency.

Third is the vacant property tax. There was a very interesting exchange during the launch of this report when the media picked up on what it believed was mixed messages from the Minister for Finance, Deputy Donohoe, and the Taoiseach over whether we would see a vacant property tax in the budget in October. In fairness to Deputy McAuliffe, he reiterated his strong support for a vacant property tax. I do not doubt his sincerity at all. However, the great concern for many of us is that information put in the public domain from the Department of Finance suggests that Deputy McAuliffe's strong support for this very sensible idea is not necessarily shared with the same enthusiasm by the Minister for Finance or his officials. We will not know until budget day but I urge the Deputies opposite to use as much influence as they can to ensure that vital tool is in the toolkit come budget day in October. If we do not have a vacant property tax, without a stick to ensure that those who are wilfully sitting and, in many cases, speculatively on vacant properties for no good reason are punished for doing so, many of the other measures here will fall exactly the same way that the measures in the previous Government's plan, which is well-intentioned and successful at the edges but will not make a profound difference.

The housing crisis is getting worse. Homelessness has breached 10,000 adults and children officially according to the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage. We could be looking at nearly 11,000 adults and children in emergency accommodation in a matter of months if the current rates continue to accelerate. In Dublin, there are approximately 1,000 homeless families but 20,000 vacant homes. You do not have to be a genius to do the maths. If we want to end homelessness, provide good-quality social and affordable housing, revitalise our city, town and village centres and tackle the pressing issue of zero-carbon built environments, this is the key. This is what we must do first. Let us all work together to make sure in the months and years ahead that the recommendations in the report are realised and that we dramatically reduce vacancy and give families and single people the homes they desperately need and rightly deserve.

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