Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú) | Oireachtas source

I agree with Deputy O'Callaghan's point that the Minister for housing is never here for this Stage of housing debates. If the Minister listened more to the knowledge and experience that exists on the Opposition benches, he might be able to deliver his role in a better fashion.

There are approximately 160,000 empty homes in the State. In a housing crisis, to have 160,000 empty homes is an absolutely horrendous situation. It does not make sense at all that the two issues would sit side by side; 160,000 empty homes and a housing crisis. One of the easiest ways to solve this crisis is to try to get those homes back into use. The Minister for housing confirmed to me in his reply to a parliamentary question today that a mere €4.3 million has been spent on getting vacant properties back into use through the grant that was launched in July 2022. A total of €4.3 million has been spent by the Department for that purpose. That works out at about €250,000 a month being spent by the Government on getting empty homes back into use, which is five or six houses a month. Over this whole period, approximately 60 homes were refurbished under the grant. There are now only 166,940 homes empty as a result of all the hard work the Government has done on this issue. At the rate of progress it is making in getting those homes refurbished and back into use, it will only take 3,300 years for the Government to get to the last house. That is a damning indictment of its slow rate of delivery.

It is a characteristic that is written right across every element of the Government's delivery of capital projects. It is unable to deliver them. This is incompetence that is costing society extremely dear. Just this year, when the Government decided to change the rules around the refurbishment grant to make it easier to access, we found out there were 3,900 applicants for the grant so far this year. How many got to draw down that funding? A total of 22 applicants have been able to do so this year. Abysmal does not even start to describe the Government's approach to getting empty homes back into use over that period. In the first iteration of the regulations the Government created, a person had to be homeless and have an empty house that was in need of refurbishment to be eligible for the grant. The Government is making it so difficult to draw down funds in a practical way and get the scheme up and running that it is currently worse than useless. At the same time, there are 3,500 empty local authority homes. They should be even easier to get back into use but it is taking, on average, eight months to do so, compared with an average of three weeks for a similar home in the private rental sector. Again, this underlines the complete dearth of competence and ability that exists in the Government in terms of tackling this issue.

We in Aontú welcome this Bill. Having no-fault evictions during the winter period is wrong. The previous time such a Bill was up for debate in this Chamber was last March. We injected a small bit of compassion into that debate by tabling an amendment that sought a compromise between the positions of the Government and the Opposition by providing specific protections to stop no-fault evictions for people who have a disability, persons suffering from cancer or another severe illness, pregnant women and people over the age of 65. The Green Party TDs voted against that protection from eviction for those most vulnerable people. Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael also voted against it. They showed a complete lack of compassion on the issue.

It is incredible that they cannot deliver new homes, yet they will not protect people in the rental sector who are desperately seeking to be able to pay very high rents or housing that is often of significantly substandard quality. Every week, dozens of people come to my constituency office in fear of being evicted, with no alternative place to go. In that scenario, where there is a no-fault eviction, the Government should do the right thing and support the Bill.

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