Paul Lawless (Mayo, Aontú) | Oireachtas source

I welcome this motion on housing, particularly in light of what we learned yesterday about County Mayo being the biggest county for derelict properties. Some 14% of the country's derelict properties are in Mayo. It is also the second highest in terms of vacancy, at almost 11%. Yet so little is being done - it is important the Minister hears this - to assist local authority housing staff in turning over those properties. It is not just on the private side. Local authorities right across this country are responsible for hoarding, and I believe the State is the biggest hoarder of vacant properties with 4,000 social and local authority homes across the country vacant.

It takes an average of eight months to turn around these properties between lettings while it takes an average of less than a month in the private sector. It is really important that urgency is shown in that situation to turn those properties around quickly. We should look at directly employing tradesmen who will work with the local authorities on a full-time basis to ensure that those small issues are dealt with as quickly as possible.

On vacancy, I welcome the vacant property grant but, when it was initially introduced, you essentially had to be a homeless homeowner to qualify. I recently came across a homeless homeowner. He had a derelict property and came into my constituency office seeking assistance. I sought out every scheme the Government has to offer and found that we could not help him. We cannot help him because he cannot draw down funds in advance or in stage payments. This man is a pensioner and is unable to draw down any finance from the banking sector. This man will remain homeless because he is unable to access support through the vacant property grant. Will the Minister consider that situation? Will he consider introducing a scheme that would allow payments to be drawn down to help homeowners who are struggling to come up with the finance, if possible?

On construction costs, I would like the Minister to seriously consider reducing the cost of construction by removing VAT from construction materials. The State takes the lion's share of building costs in this country. As I have mentioned before, this Government is great on rhetoric, PR and schemes but it is very poor on delivery. I will give another example. The affordable housing scheme is essentially still a pipe dream in Mayo. Five units have been promised but they are yet to come on stream. We hope they will come on stream soon. The entire part of Mayo I am from, the Claremorris municipal district, an area in south and east Mayo, will not even be considered for affordable housing. There is an absence of any real scheme. On the tenant in situscheme, a constituent called me last week who has been waiting longer than a year to sell a property to the local authority and who cannot do so. In the absence of these schemes, will the Minister consider reducing the cost of construction by removing VAT from construction material? It would make a very great difference in reducing the cost of construction.

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