Martin Browne (Tipperary, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I also thank Deputy Cian O'Callaghan and the Social Democrats for bringing forward the motion. The number of residential properties recorded as vacant in December 2022 was 83,662. That is a significant stock of unused properties and if the correct incentives to dissuade people from allowing their properties to sit idle were in place it would go some way to addressing the housing shortage in County Tipperary. Instead, the Minister's vacant property tax of 0.3% will deter few and ultimately misses the opportunity. That is where the central argument of this motion comes into play, because Sinn Féin has repeatedly said bringing vacant homes back into use is one of the quickest and most sustainable ways to increase the supply of housing.

Speed of supply is essential for the people in my constituency who have been issued with notices to quit. I have recently found myself not just representing people who have been issued with notices to quit, but notifying the council of impending evictions. As we firefight what is already happening, people's needs are harder and harder to meet. However, in not making the most of vacant properties, the Government slows the process down for people whose needs are immediate. Some 20% of Sinn Féin's public housing build programme in 2023 would have come from vacant and derelict buildings, but the Government prefers to present aspirational figures for the future as current achievements, as is the case with social housing, while at the same time avoiding the reality of its failures in affordable housing. The Department's own data, which is now no longer hidden, confirm that in 2022 no local authority affordable housing units were delivered in Tipperary. If the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage is going to defend himself on his record in bringing vacant properties in need of repair back into use, how many units were delivered under the repair and leasing scheme in my county last year? The answer is zero. It was also zero in 2021 and 2020. To compound this, there was an underspend of €1 billion at a time when the money should have been used to build affordable homes. How is that possible? How did we not have an overspend, given the scale of the crisis and the increased costs?

Sinn Féin would dramatically increase capital funding to local authorities, approved housing bodies and community housing trusts to deliver good-quality affordable homes while stripping away the red tape and streamlining the delivery process. Instead, the Government has provided a vacant property tax that is nothing but a gesture. It will not do what it is supposed to because it is light-touch. It will not act as a disincentive to the hoarding of empty properties. The most important people, namely those in desperate need of housing, will continue to ask where they are to go.

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