Ossian Smyth (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I ran for election first in 2014 in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown and one of the issues on which I ran was that there were 100 vacant properties along the main street and in the town of Dún Laoghaire. I looked into this problem and later on I became the chair of the corporate policy group in the council and I was able to effect the budget. What we found was that people were making a strategic decision to leave property empty. There were some commercial property owners, sometimes institutions, which decided that if they did not find the right tenant, they would leave their property empty for a while or for a couple of years and this had a very damaging effect on their neighbours. The street was beginning to look like it was gap-toothed. A person could be trying to run a business and the businesses on either side of them were vacant, were bringing down the tone of the area and were creating an atmosphere of dereliction.

We did a number of things. First, we took positive action and offered, for example, a shop-front renovation grant or a rates holiday if a vacant shop was brought back into use. The second thing we did was to use some element of stick and a negative thing. Up to that point, owners could get a refund on their commercial rates. If properties were empty for a while, we began to reduce that refund. Effectively, we were taxing people who had vacant commercial property and very quickly things changed around. The quantity of vacant properties in my area fell by 80% over a number of years. The town is now much more vibrant and that obscenity of seeing empty properties all over an area, where there is a shortage of property, began to disappear.

This applies to residential property as well. We need both carrot and stick. We need incentives for people to put properties back into use. As the Minister of State, Deputy O'Donnell, said, we have this vacancy grant, which is €50,000 for a vacant property or €70,000 for a derelict property. On top of that, a person can get up to €27,000 on the retrofit grants. Therefore, there are big incentives to do up a property that is vacant. At the same time we need to have some type of negative action or tax on somebody who chooses to leave a property empty and that is why we have the vacant property tax at three times the normal property tax on top of the existing property tax. This combination of incentives, both positive and negative, is going to bring back vibrancy back to our towns and villages. It worked in Dún Laoghaire. If it can work in my town, it can work in other towns as well.

I commend Deputy Matthews on bringing forward this Bill. It is great to have this conversation. It is more than a conversation because there are a lot of actions happening as well. I look forward to seeing this Bill on Committee Stage.

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