Ivana Bacik (Dublin Bay South, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I do not hear any sign of the necessary ambition or urgency from the Minister when he effectively says to people to wait and see, that we will publish those revised targets but just not yet, even though everyone, including the Housing Commission, says the targets are simply too low. Let us take vacancy and dereliction as an example. So much more needs to be done to tackle the scourge of vacancy and dereliction. Yet, instead of ambition and urgency, the Croí Cónaithe scheme is inadequate. It is only available to those with the means to cover costs upfront and is not working efficiently. The Government is attempting to tax those who sit on vacant homes but relies on self-reporting; that is not working. The Government is leaving a compulsory purchase system that is simply so inadequate and so slow that it is not working. The deadline for new amendments to the planning Bill is next week. We put in amendments on Committee Stage to introduce new use it or lose it rules for developers who speculate on inactive planning permissions. A substantive thing the Government could do to speed up delivery is to act on our amendment, adopt it and take it on board to bring a similar amendment forward to tackle vacancy and dereliction.

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