David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Could the Minister of State let me know at some stage which local authorities are using the funding provided by the Oireachtas to fund vacant homes officers? Which of those are doing that exclusively so that, for example, the vacant homes job is not number ten on a list of other works they have got to do? Is that a condition attached to the funding we are providing to the local authorities? My sense is that these vacant homes officers are doing ten other jobs as well, and that should not be the case.

The Minister of State mentioned that his Department works with Revenue and the Department of Finance. Could he comment on the response I received from the Minister for Finance, Deputy Chambers in June? He told me that 6,400 properties have been declared vacant, and approximately 3,700 of those have a liability to the vacant homes tax. That is a long way away from the 82,000 that the Minister of State just commented on there, which I assume are just homes. Why is there such a huge discrepancy? I know it is self-declared but surely we are missing a trick in this regard in that if we had a link between the two Departments, we could actually gather more tax and encourage people to carry out work.

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