Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE) | Oireachtas source

Also on the issue of housing, I am not sure if the Taoiseach saw it but there was a Central Bank report yesterday that projected that more than one quarter of Dublin office space could be vacant over the next two years. This is a potential game-changer as regards the housing crisis. The accommodation in question is a significant untapped resource. Total office space in Dublin was estimated at 3.9 million sq. m back in 2020. A quarter of that is enough space for more than 20,000 apartments in Dublin. We know it can be done. It is being done in a certain way now in that office buildings are being repurposed for accommodation for international protection applicants. It is obviously quite overcrowded and not suitable for people to live in for the long term but it shows that commercial buildings can be converted for residential use. If we had a left government that was willing, we could take these vacant office buildings into public ownership and convert them into social and affordable housing.

It also makes sense from a climate perspective. Emissions from converting existing built buildings into housing will be much lower than those from building housing from scratch. Offices also tend to be in much more central locations with good access to transport and so on rather than in the greenfield locations used for new housing estates. Instead of chasing refugees up and down the canal, the Taoiseach should use some of that energy of his to go after vacant offices around the city to use them for housing.

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