Paul Donnelly (Dublin West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I was contacted last week by a constituent. She said "I am facing homelessness and I don't know where I'm going to go, but there's a house in my area that has been empty for ages". I am not the only one who gets these messages with photos of empty houses through Facebook and via email. I am not the only one who sees empty homes in every single estate with leaflets stacked high in hallways. We trek back down the driveway and we wonder what the backstory is. We cannot get every single house back into use because there are legitimate reasons why some are empty. However, there are tens of thousands of empty houses that are ready to be occupied. Would it not be amazing if this Government was as ruthless in implementing its stated policy of a vacant homes tax as it was in ending the eviction ban?

There are around 165,000 vacant homes, with somewhere around 35,000 of those in Dublin. That is double the level of vacant homes there would be in a normal and functioning housing system. We know that vacant homes can be brought back into the system quicker and cheaper than new homes so it is time that action was taken on this front. Sinn Féin believes that maximising the amount of vacant homes to active use should entail incentives for those who need help to upgrade their homes for tenants and penalties for those who leave their homes vacant. Housing for All has promised that the vacant homes tax will be introduced in the second quarter of this year but the devil is always in the detail. It is a miserable 0.3%. I cannot see those with vacant homes quaking in their boots. The vacant homes tax must be large enough to make a real impact on those who are sitting on homes that can be put into use because we are dealing with real people and families who are facing homelessness on a daily basis.

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