Michael Cahill (Kerry, Fianna Fail)

Local authorities need to do much more about our vacant council housing stock. We have houses vacant for one, five, ten, 15 or 20 years, or longer. Some of these properties are beyond repair. Others require substantial works. There are vacant rural cottages that were part of a farm and that family members wish to buy and have been trying to do so for many years. Where there is value for money, of course we should be doing up these properties and reallocating them to qualified housing applicants; where it is too costly to repair them, we need to sell them off as soon as possible and put the moneys raised back into replenishing the housing stock.

I would like to get the figures for the number of properties vacant for more than one year, five years, 15 years and 20 years in each local authority. What is the longest vacant local authority house in each local authority area? What number will be repaired? What number will be sold? What will happen to the remainder? There may be title issues, boundary issues, etc. Can we be told when the properties will be sold, repaired, etc? To address the housing crisis, we need to make radical decisions. We need to zone land in all our towns and villages. We need to zone lands for affordable, social and private housing. We also need to zone land for modular homes. We need to give our people a choice. We should make low-cost sites available to our citizens.

In that regard, we need somebody radical. I hope he will forgive me for saying it, but we may need somebody like Michael O'Leary to be given a free rein. This problem is sortable. I wish the Minister, Deputy Browne, well and will support him in any way I can. I know his heart is in the right place. We will get to the end of this crisis but it will take doors being knocked down, windows being opened, etc.

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