Pádraig Mac Lochlainn (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The area of vacant homes is a shocking failure by the Government. I want to share with the Minister the situation in Donegal just to illustrate the madness of the way the Government approaches housing. We have well over 7,000 vacant homes in Donegal. Those are not holiday homes but vacant homes and this is at a time when we have a profound housing crisis. There are 2,500 families on the social housing list and the delivery of social housing by the Government in Donegal is appalling. We have the defective block scandal and crisis in the county as well.

We are looking at homes in every housing estate and across the highways and byways of our counties that are lying empty, many of them in the possession of banks. The significant majority of these houses could be rented out soon with a dedicated application and with a focus from Government. It is a scandal that we have families in Donegal telling us that they are facing homelessness because they have an eviction notice, while there are vacant houses all around them. What has happened is that as we speak Donegal County Council will hire just one vacant homes officer in a county the size of Donegal. How on earth will one person overturn the scale of the crisis?

The Minister has to wake up; there is an emergency happening in this country. It is like there is a fire and a house is burning down and the people in charge of the fire brigade are drinking coffee and eating donuts all the while and telling us they are taking it seriously. It is incredible that one vacant homes officer is being recruited just now when the Government has known that there are thousands of empty houses and that it is a profound crisis. There are people whose homes have to be knocked down because of the failure of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, when they were in government, to regulate the concrete block industry. That is what we are facing.

When will the Government wake up and apply an urgent approach to this crisis? Why is the Government not sitting down with Donegal County Council and asking how many officers it needs and what sort of resources are required to rebuild those houses, make it happen and get people permanent roofs over their heads? The Government has to listen to us in the Opposition when we have motions like this. It is an excellent motion drafted by the Social Democrats and Deputy Cian O'Callaghan and the Government has to take it seriously and engage. The Government says we do not provide solutions. It gets solutions from us again and again every week but it brushes them aside and the crisis and emergency continues.

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