Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I want to raise the voids scheme, but I would rather have the name changed to what it is, namely, the empty houses scheme. When we talk about voids in local authorities, I would rather call them what they are: empty local authority houses.

I want to highlight the fact that a local authority only gets €11,000 to do up a house, no matter what condition it is in, if it is vacant. The other anomaly is that if the house has received any funding since 2014, it will actually receive no funding whatsoever. In the county that I represent, County Kerry, if our local authority has a house that is empty, it could cost €50,000 to do it up, but if it has received any money since 2014 it will actually not receive anything. The most we can get is €11,000, which as the Minister knows will do very little, but the other option is that we will actually get nothing at all.

In Kerry at present, we have a lot of empty houses, or as the Minister calls them, voids. I call them empty houses. That is not the fault of our local authority, our excellent housing authority. It is not their fault. I do not have to remind the Minister, who was a very prudent Minister for Finance - I respect the work he is doing - that over a three-year period he failed to spend €1 billion on housing. Now, more than ever, we need to review the whole system of dealing with voids, empty houses. We should treat it the same as a person in the private sector would treat it. If a private person who is serious about their business is involved in property, and if a house becomes vacant, they will tear at it, the same as a man or a woman at the moment who goes out to cut a field of silage, knock a field of hay, or plough a field. They tear at it, as there is a job of work to be done. If a house or apartment becomes vacant, the person who owns it will come at it in a systematic way. They will send in a plumber, painter or tiler and they will refurbish it by doing whatever needs to be done. Our local authority cannot do that because their hands are tied behind their backs, financially.

Will the Minister please take on board what I am saying, which is sensible and sound? He has the money. He failed to spend €1 billion over three years. I would gladly help him to spend it in County Kerry, if he would take on 160 houses that are empty. I am very serious about this. I know that the Government wants to assist and to do good work. We have 160 houses in Kerry that are voids. Could the Minister please give us the money and we will turn them around? We have the workers. We have excellent people on the ground. We will put people living in those houses – moms, dads, children, aunties and uncles. We will have them living inside in those houses as quick as you can say, Jack Flash. All I am saying is that the Minister should please look at that whole system, resource it properly and remove the limit of only allocating €11,000 or nothing.

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