Richard O'Donoghue (Limerick County, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I agree with some parts of the Sinn Féin motion and disagree with other parts. We are talking here about housing and Government policy on producing housing for people. The number of vacant houses in Limerick in the ownership of the local authority is absolutely scandalous. Is the Minister of State aware of the time it takes to bring a vacant local authority house back into stock? It takes three months for the local authority to get the house ready but, on top of that, there is a wait of another two to three months before the house is allocated. A house is ready for someone to move into but it takes the local authority three months to allocate it. If that was my business, I would not have a business. I am a building contractor and I understand this. How can it take three months to retrofit one house? It is because the local authorities are trying to do it all themselves. They should just hire people to go in and retrofit the house and give it to people. If it is not 100% up to current retrofitting standards, the inside of the house should be done first and the outside should be retrofitted later, when the proper labour is available. We need to get people into the houses. There are people who are homeless at the moment and there are houses in stock. People are now breaking in to vacant local authority houses because they have nowhere else to live. They are able to live there for a time while they try to be accommodated. Our biggest problem is that it is taking too long for vacant local authority houses in our own areas to be returned to people, when they could be returned today.

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