Michael Collins (Cork South West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The Social Democrats' proposals would see the current vacant properties tax increase by more than 33 times to 10% of the property valuation. If implemented, this would mean that the average vacant home using the average home price of €320,000 would pay a vacant home tax of €32,000 per year, up from the current €945 per year. This proposal is just plain bonkers and is destined to fail. A vacant property tax falls into the category of something that sounds good, that will play well politically but ultimately that will deliver next to nothing.

I would support a vacant council homes motion if it was put in front of us but do not get us wrong. It is galling to have so many empty homes in the midst of such a chronic housing shortage. Vacancy is a complex phenomenon and one that will simply not be magicked away by tax. Let us consider, for example, the person with an inherited home who may want to do it up for a son or daughter but might not have the funds to do so. In a place such as west Cork, having to pay this tax to the Government is almost the equivalent of a yearly industrial salary of €30,000 per year in a vacant home tax. Such a policy proposal is nothing more than a communist, left-wing, political point-scoring exercise. Let us imagine how many vacant homes are out there due to people who may be in hospitals, in nursing homes, or who may be cared for by relatives. They would have this horrible tax applied to their homes when most of these people are already paying for a fair deal payment.

Today, the Social Democrats and the left will want to force people who have a second home to start paying tens of thousands of euro in tax, and tomorrow they will want to tax people who have vacant homes. We will not support this attack on hard-working homeowners and families who are struggling to get by.

We would support a motion to ease the planning restrictions on young people trying to start building their own homes on their parents' property, which is almost impossible in my constituency. This leaves many people houseless at this stage. We would also support measures to deal with void council houses.

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