Ken O'Flynn (Cork North-Central, Independent Ireland Party)

We are not simply facing a housing shortage, but confronting a failure of governments, of planning, of priority and of moral seriousness. This motion shines a light on a scandal that should never have been allowed to become routine. There are 2,656 vacant council homes across the State. Nearly 800 of them have been empty for over a year while nearly 4,000 children sleep in tents on cold streets and the lucky ones sleep in emergency accommodation. The average letting time in a local authority is now 33 weeks for the turnaround of that property. The average cost of bringing that property into repair is €28,000 per unit. This has increased by 50% since 2019, yet central government provides just €11,000 per unit. That is a shortfall of €17,000. This is not policy, but dereliction that is expensive, bureaucratic and utterly inefficient.

Let us be candid in this House. This government policy is neither centre-right nor centre-left, but it is certainly the centre of chaos. It has no ideology beyond inertia, no vision beyond the next press release and no instinct for delivery. It reacts but it does not lead. It is entangled in the process, paralysed by indecision and blind to the urgency of this generation’s housing emergency.

However, let us not pretend those bringing forward this motion have all the answers. They have spent years shifting the blame from government to local authority and back again depending on which way the political wind is blowing. Some of their councillors have made spectacles of themselves online, in print and on social media by pointing the finger at the Minister today, at the council tomorrow, at the Department the next day and around and around again.

I will not, and this Parliament must not, allow local government to be the scapegoat in all of this. I place on record my admiration and respect for the staff of Cork City Council and Cork County Council who continue to serve with professionalism and resolve despite being expected to deliver with one hand tied behind their back by the departmental Scrooge. They are not failing, as some Sinn Féin TDs have said in the past. They are instead succeeding in spite of departmental procrastination.

We in this House must consider a broader truth. Ireland is ten years ahead of the population plan. We have already passed 5.3 million. This milestone was projected for 2035, not 2025. This growth is not a surprise. It comes with inward economic migrants and a sharp rise in refugee and asylum applications. According to the Department of justice there was a 290% jump between 2019 and 2024. The CSO projected 5.6 million by 2030. We are already nearly at that point. This type of demographic pressure demands clarity, a tough boldness and action. Instead we are getting delay, drift and dysfunction from this Government. Other countries and cities across the world face similar pressures, from Vancouver to Vienna. The difference is those countries are acting while we are hesitating. We are handing off responsibility to others. We are waiting until the problem becomes unmanageable and then we wring our hands in this House and we act surprised.

I congratulate my friends on this and agree wholeheartedly that we must have a permanent, ring-fenced refurbishment beginning with budget 2026. We must end the spending caps that cripple local authorities to deliver. We must have a national standard of a 12-week turnaround period for vacant homes to come into use. Direct labour terms and procurement rules must enable us and not obstruct the delivery. There must be full autonomy for local authorities, no more delays and waiting lists and departmental greenlighting to fix the door of a council house. There must be a public register of vacant homes updated twice yearly to ensure transparency and accountability.

These are not radical ideas by my friends; they are common sense ideas. It is what a competent and functioning Government would have already done. If in 2025 a Government cannot turn an empty house into a home in under 90 days, we must ask ourselves a question in this House. What exactly is it in office to do? What are we witnessing? What we are witnessing is not leadership. We are witnessing mismanagement, systemic, habitual and increasingly costly mistakes that are being presided over by a Minister with intellectual caution, a Minister run by a Department of administrators more interested in the optics than the outcomes. Ireland is at a drift. We deserve better. We need better and we need more than just empty slogans. We deserve a Government worthy of the challenges that this country faces.

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