Brendan Griffin (Kerry, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I appreciate the opportunity to speak on this issue. It is the most pressing issue facing the country at the moment and has been for a number of years. It really is proving extremely difficult to improve. I acknowledge the pressures in respect of the rapidly growing population and the war in Ukraine, but I certainly feel that much more can be done and needs to be done. I welcome the positive measures that are in Housing for All but we need to go further. A lot more needs to be done in respect of Government housing policy.

If I may start with the area of dereliction, that is a great opportunity for us in terms of getting as many units as possible back into circulation as homes as quickly as possible. This is an area I have been beating the drum on for many years. I remember back in 2014-15 designing what I then called the renovation and rent scheme. It was adopted two years later by the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage as the repair and lease scheme. For me it was glaringly obvious even back then that we had thousands of units all over the country that were sitting empty, crumbling, yet they could well have been converted into homes. At that time they could have been done a lot more affordably as well. Right now there is still an opportunity.

I welcome Croí Cónaithe. It is long overdue but it is a positive development. This is important for our cities, towns and villages but also for the open rural countryside such as the part of County Kerry I come from, where we have old farmhouses and cottages that could be beautiful new homes for people with a relatively small investment. In my own little parish between the Slieve Mish Mountains and Castlemaine Harbour on the Dingle Peninsula, I counted 50 such properties four years ago, 47 of which are still derelict right now. Most of these properties could be homes, probably for between €20,000 and €100,000. I hope Croí Cónaithe's extension to the open rural countryside will make a big impact on that figure. It would also be important to really kick-start that initiative to give an incentive for the people who own those houses, and in some cases are hoarding them, to sell them to first-time buyers. Such an incentive could be provided through capital gains tax. It might encourage people to make those properties available.

I am somewhat concerned that the vacant property tax might not go far enough. If we are providing incentives, there also needs to be a stick in respect of people who are sitting on derelict properties in the middle of a housing crisis and who will not make them available for people who are desperately looking for a place to live. Perhaps something could be done in respect of derelict properties such as has been done for vacant properties. As we know, unless it is on the register there is not any particular stick. We know that most rural countryside houses are not on any register anywhere. That is something that should be looked at and I would like to see action on it.

I would also like us to be imaginative in respect of planning laws. Right now it is possible to extend for up to 400 sq. ft. on a property without planning permission. Why not extend that to 800 sq. ft. in the open countryside or, within a 50 km limit, bring it up to 600 sq. ft. without having to go for planning permission and slowing down the process? There are extremely punitive charges for reconnecting to electricity and water. These bills make no sense whatsoever. The utility companies will do well once these properties are reconnected. They will make their money back. They do not need punitive reconnection fees on young couples. For first-time buyers that is something that should be dealt with. Sure enough, apply an occupancy clause to ensure we do not have abuse of the system. That is something that is glaringly obvious and should be done.

When I look at County Kerry at the moment, there is fantastic work being done in the provision of new social homes in recent years with a lot of housing developments going on all over the county, which is very positive news.

There are keys being handed out now at a pretty rapid rate, which is good to see. However, there is very little, if anything, happening in relation to affordable homes. There needs to be a certain percentage of each social housing development set aside for affordable homes for purchase. It is something we are just not seeing. These are the people who simply cannot afford to buy on the open market and do not qualify for social housing. They are squeezed in the middle and are getting nothing. That is an area that, with a small change, we can make an impact on. That is something that has been raised with me many times in my constituency office. I meet people in the county and they feel completely abandoned in that regard. That is something that needs to be looked at.

I wish to raise another point in the short time that I have left. Tá buairt mhór orm faoi pholasaí tithíochta sna Gaeltachtaí, go háirithe i gCorca Dhuibhne. Tá a lán fadhbanna againn. Níl na daoine óga in ann tithí a cheannach. Níl siad in ann cead pleanála a fháil ó Chomhairle Chontae Chiarraí ach tá daoine, gan aon fhocal Gaolainn acu, in ann teacht isteach agus tithí a cheannach. Fágann na daoine óga ó cheantar Corca Dhuibhe agus téann siad go Trá Lí, go Lios Tuathail, go Caisleán na Maighne agus tá an teanga ag dul leo.

We are fooling ourselves if we think that we are going to keep investing in the Irish language and keep it alive if the people who speak the language as their native tongue do not get to live in their area. Surely, there has to be special protection status given in relation to housing in the Gaeltachtaí. We need a very strict enforcement of that. What is there at the moment is not working and it is not being enforced. The language is dying as a result of that. Young people are not able to live in their own areas and the language is going with them out of the Gaeltachtaí.

Short-term housing is a massive problem. The head has been buried in the sand for too long. This is the elephant in the room, as far as I am concerned, coming from a very tourism-oriented county where we have a huge number of short-term properties on the market and very few, if any, long-term properties. Taxation is the way of dealing with this. Make it more affordable for people to put their property on the market for long-term rental and enforce the existing regulations, because they are not being enforced.

Finally, too many people are being refused the local authority home loan scheme. It is too punitive. Having to put every household resident on the application form just simply does not make sense because many people are over 70 in households where children are trying to buy properties. That needs to be addressed as well.

See this speech in context