Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú)
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95. To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform the total number of properties sold by the OPW in each of the past ten years; and the cost of each, in tabular form. [15633/25]

Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú)
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The might also mention the Midleton flood defences, which have been mooted since 2017. My understanding is that the planning application has still not been processed. It is a real life and death issue for the people of Midleton.

Vacant property during a housing crisis is one of the biggest problems I have with this Government. This and the previous Governments are the biggest hoarders of vacant property in the State, believe it or not. Last month, the OPW wrote to me stating it had 67 vacant properties. What efforts are being made to get those vacant properties back into use or to sell them so they can be brought back into use?

Kevin Moran (Longford-Westmeath, Independent)
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The OPW, like other State bodies, is obliged to follow Government policies on the disposal of surplus properties and the arrangements involved are set out in Department of Public Expenditure, NDP Delivery and Reform circulars, Circular 11/2015 on protocols for the transfer and sharing of State property assets, and Circular 17/2016 on the policy for property acquisition and disposal of surplus property. The OPW’s policy in managing surplus properties is to establish if the property is required for alternative State use, including the potential for it to be repurposed for Departments or the wider public service. A number of strategic properties are retained in anticipation of potential State use or development in line with service demands arising from Government policy changes to public service provision. If no State use is identified, the OPW considers whether open market disposal is an option, depending on prevailing market conditions. The OPW may consider community involvement, subject to a detailed submission that demonstrates that the community or voluntary group seeking to use the property has the means to insure, maintain and manage it in order to reduce costs to the Exchequer. As a matter of policy, no property is disposed of until it is absolutely certain that there is no alternative State use for that property.

The OPW has disposed of 171 properties over the past ten years, garnering an income of more than €35.5 million for the Exchequer. The breakdown for each of the years 2015 to 2024 is as follows: 28 properties disposed of in 2015 for €3,590,198; 19 properties disposed of in 2016 for €3,338,500; eight properties disposed of in 2017 for €522,500; ten properties disposed of in 2018 for €2,112,011; seven properties disposed of in 2019 for €5,250,500; 22 properties disposed of in 2020 for €2,550,000;-----

Aidan Farrelly (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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I thank the Minister of State.

Kevin Moran (Longford-Westmeath, Independent)
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-----13 properties disposed of in 2021 for €1,508,803; 24 properties disposed of in 2022 for €8.6 million;-----

Aidan Farrelly (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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The Minister of State is half a minute over time.

Kevin Moran (Longford-Westmeath, Independent)
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-----22 properties disposed of in 2023 for €3.7 million; and 18 properties disposed of in 2024 for €4.3 million. This amounts to a total of 171 properties for €35,509,162.

Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú)
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I welcome the sales of those properties. That is a good thing, but the Minister must admit that on a day when 15,600 people are homeless, the idea that one Department would have 45 vacant properties is absolutely wrong. The OPW is involved in a total of 450 lease agreements which concern approximately 374 properties. We have seen the OPW lease property from Larry Goodman where someone measured it incorrectly and the taxpayer is paying rent for space that does not even exist, which is quite incredible. That was before the Minister of State's time in the Department.

Having vacant properties in a housing crisis is akin to exporting food in the middle of a famine. It is absolutely wrong and what I missed in the Minister of State's response was any real sense of urgency to offload the 45 properties and make sure they were brought into use. It is not just the OPW. It involves many departments, including the HSE and the Departments of agriculture and Justice. Hundreds of properties and parcels of land owned by the State are vacant, many for decades.

Kevin Moran (Longford-Westmeath, Independent)
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There is a clear process we have to follow and the Deputy is well aware that, if I did not follow it, he would be standing opposite telling me I had done this and that and had not followed the proper procedure.

Fourteen properties went to Tipperary County Council for social housing. Eight residential units in Dublin city centre were leased to housing agencies. A building in Crumlin was leased to Dublin City Council for use as a family hub. Two former Garda stations in Cork were transferred to social housing. Three Garda stations in Limerick went to social housing. The list goes on. We have followed all the criteria that are in place.

No more than any other agency, the OPW has an enormous number of properties. For some of them, we go through the process of releasing them to local authorities. We always look at State bodies first and then we release them to the local authorities if they require them. However, it is not always the case that the properties are situated in areas where they are wanted by the different departments.

Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú)
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Aontú put in freedom of information, FOI, requests to each of the local authorities and found there were 4,000 empty local authority homes in the country. If those 4,000 empty local authority homes were brought back into use, they would be enough to house the total 15,600 people who are currently homeless. We found that it is taking on average eight months to get those local authority homes back into use, while it takes less than two months to get private rental accommodation back into use.

This is the key. While the Minister of State set out the criteria that have to be gone through to get those back into use, the State is incredibly cumbersome, slow and bureaucratic about getting them back into use. All I am saying is that we need to match urgency within the Department to the level of crisis that exists in the real world for very many people. We need the State to go through the system, make sure it is done properly and carefully and protect taxpayers' money, but I want the Minister of State to inject significant urgency into the process. For people who are currently living in hotel accommodation or emergency hubs, life is urgent. They need to get out of those hubs and into a home, have their own front door, have the protection of their own home and be able to get on with their lives.

Kevin Moran (Longford-Westmeath, Independent)
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The Government is doing everything possible to help those people in hotels.

On the question the Deputy asked, we have offered a great number of properties to different organisations, such as local authorities and local groups. If the Deputy knows where there are properties, he should make that information available to me and I will look into them. It is easy to stand up - I am not being critical here - and talk about properties in different parts of the country, but it is not always easy to find an end use for them because some are in isolated areas. There is always a use for any property that is in an urban setting, but some of the properties we have are not in areas where people require them. If the Deputy knows someone who requires a property and if he has information, I would be glad to work with him to see whether we can find an end use for it.