Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú) | Oireachtas source

There are 4,000 local authority homes in the State that are empty. That is an incredible figure. It takes eight months on average to get these local authority homes back into use. Many of them are empty for well over a year. It takes three weeks for private rental accommodation to come back into use. The difference is that private landlords cannot leave their accommodation empty for eight months. I have no doubt some of the local authority homes may be used for a longer period and therefore may need more renovation, but none of that makes up for the massive difference. If the same timescale was being used for local authority homes, 3,500 of those homes would be in use today. Believe it or not, that would accommodate the 14,500 people in the State who are currently homeless.

In addition, 90,000 private homes are empty and the Government is giving grants to get these empty homes back into use. However, it is only providing three, four or five grants per month. It will take 1,350 years at this rate to get all of those homes back into use. Where is the urgency with regard to getting local authority homes and private homes that are empty back into use? We need to sweat the assets that exist here to make sure people have homes. Having empty homes in the middle of a housing crisis is the equivalent of sending food out of the country in the middle of a famine.

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