Conor Sheehan (Limerick City, Labour)

Ar dtús báire, ba mhaith liom mo bhuíochas a ghabháil le Sinn Féin as ucht an rúin seo a thabhairt faoi bhráid na Dála anocht. The Labour Party has long campaigned against the scourge of vacancy and dereliction in our communities. Vacant local authority homes are the low-hanging fruit of the housing crisis and constitute State-sponsored dereliction. The undisputed fact is that local authorities do not receive adequate funding from the Department to deal with this. They get on average €11,000 per unit when it costs on average €48,000 to bring a vacant council home back into use. Construction inflation has increased by 114% since 2014. In Limerick, a city represented by the Minister of State and me, there are always more than 200 vacant local authority homes.

I wrote to the Minister last week to support a detailed and costed business case put forward by Limerick City and County Council for additional voids funding following a special meeting of the council and signed by all councillors, including those from Fine Gael. There are 113 homes awaiting minor refurbishment, which cannot be done for €11,000. There are 115 units assigned to the housing maintenance team of the council awaiting minor repairs. Of these, 87 are eligible for €11,000 in voids funding and 28 are being funded entirely through the council's revenue budget. The current funding deficit stands at €1.4 million. There is a forecast deficit of €5 million to refurbish 105 units, which leaves a total deficit of €6.5 million. I am asking the Minister of State both as a line Minister in the Department and a fellow TD for Limerick city to try to engage practically with the local authority to plug this gap. I know he is a practical person who is well able to get things done. All of us can work together to see whether, at the very least, we can plug some of that deficit and get some movement on this. Vacant homes are an eyesore. They are often a magnet for antisocial behaviour, draw vermin and rubbish and are desperately unfair to other residents living in a community.

The mechanism by which the voids scheme operates is flawed, with local authorities required to bundle vacant homes together, which often takes months, causing them to be welded up at considerable cost to the taxpayer and left to rot for months and years until they are refurbished. In Limerick, we are literally operating on what is effectively a one-in one-out model. It makes no sense. The Minister of State knows that. I was very dismayed when, in response to my party leader during Leaders' Questions a few weeks ago, the Taoiseach said there is a culture of dependency in local authorities. This is ridiculous. He was either being disingenuous or he is out of touch. There are council homes in parts of Limerick that have been vacant for up to three or four years. A total of 3,500 local authority homes become vacant every year. As we all know, councils are legally obligated to fit them out to a certain standard under the standard for rented housing regulations, which were established in 2019, so it is a bit more complicated than just giving them a lick of paint as the Taoiseach tried to misrepresent a couple of weeks ago. It takes over a year to refurbish and re-let these homes in Limerick. It is important to note that our local authority has been very proactive in funding some of the cost of the refurbishment of these homes. As we both know, in 2015, Limerick City and County Council approved a loan to Limerick 2030 to purchase and develop the old Dell factory site into a film studio. Following the sale of the studio, when Limerick 2030 repaid the loan to the council, the council repurposed this to fund the refurbishment of vacant council homes. The problem is that the money is effectively gone and, outside the €11,000 voids funding, the only source is the local authority's own resources. The local authority does not have the financial means to address the shortfall in funding, which means it cannot meet the targets set by the Department. It is important to note that the targets set by the Department do not call for the elimination of all voids, which they should do. These things should not exist. We are in a housing emergency. As others have said, they are literally the low-hanging fruit. Every day, I hear somebody in this House talk about vacant council homes and I feel like it is Groundhog Day because we are collectively saying the same thing week in and week out, year in and year out and nothing changes. As councils are required to bring vacant homes up to a standard, this compels local authorities in some cases to carry out significant work in order to re-let the property. We might be able to look at this to bring about a bit more flexibility to allow the local authorities to carry out some of the necessary work with the tenant in situ.

In failing to adequately fund local authorities to deal with voids, the Government is yet again failing to meet its own objectives under Housing for All. Objective 20 of Housing for All places a requirement on local authorities to make more efficient use of existing housing stock. If the Government is serious about taking radical action to solve the housing crisis, I urge it to go at this with all the armoury and resources of the State. We need urgent action to tackle dereliction and bring vacant homes back into use. I know that as part of the programme for Government, consideration is being given to the introduction of a new voids programme with a view to improving turnaround times for vacant social homes, which can vary wildly, from a couple of weeks in County Laois to the bones of a year in other places like Limerick. We need much more consistency in respect of the turnaround.

In this housing emergency, the Government must bring forward this new void scheme immediately. The first thing it should do is look to increase the funding available to councils to do this. I urge the Minister of State to speak to departmental officials regarding the specific ask in the letter that went from Limerick City and County Council on that funding deficit. There is scope for increased funding to be allocated to the council. In fairness, when the council has got funding, it has been good at spending and utilising it properly to bring homes back into use.

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