Kieran O'Donnell (Limerick City, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am aware of the point the Deputy raises. I have listened very carefully to him.

With regard to the voids programme, my Department is satisfied that Kerry County Council has been well supported in its efforts to bring social housing stock back into much-needed productive use. Given the significant investment in the voids programme over recent years, local authorities should be in a strong position to begin the transition to a strategic and informed planned maintenance approach to stock management and maintenance. To this end, the Department and local authorities are working to transition from a largely responsive and voids-based approach to housing stock management and maintenance, to a planned maintenance approach, as referenced in policy objective 20.6 of Housing for All. This will require the completion of stock condition surveys by all local authorities and the subsequent development of strategic and informed work programmes in response.

The Minister wrote to all local authorities last October on the issue of voids, seeking for them to expedite the process. There will be a further follow-up to put in place a proactive programme that would look at individual properties to see what can be returned to use. We cannot have a situation where we have properties left vacant for an inordinate length of time. The Deputy accepts that certain properties will take time but we will certainly follow up the case he highlights in Tobar Naofa with Kerry County Council.

The process has started this year and a further €5 million in funding has been ring-fenced for planned maintenance under this year's planned maintenance-voids programme to support the implementation of an ICT asset management system for the local authority sector and to provide a funding contribution for the commencement of stock condition surveys. That very much feeds into the point highlighted by the Deputy. We need local authorities to get granular in respect of individual properties. If there is a genuine case for work taking time, that is fine, but we cannot have a one-size-fits-all approach. The Deputy can take it that we are very much on the same page. We want to see voids returned as quickly as possible. The process is moving from being a responsive one by the local authorities to a proactive one so that at all times they will have a minimum level of vacant stock within the system.

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