Victor Boyhan (Independent) | Oireachtas source

That is fantastic, and I thank Senator Murnane O'Connor, and I look forward to Senators on all sides of the House supporting the Bill through one more Stage. There are many Stages but let us get to the next Stage. I do not want the Bill to be killed tonight. I hope the Minister will reflect on this. It is reasonable. It is important that we have and encourage debate.

In essence, the proposals set out seek to remove the minimum site size from the legislation, which would bring far more vacant sites under the scope of the legislation; increase the rate of vacant and derelict sites from 3% to 5%, with increased penalties for every subsequent year the site remains derelict or vacant after the designated date; and create a transparent process in which derelict sites are added to the register. It also speaks about moving forward the implementation of the vacant site levy for two years so it applies from mid-2017. It also seeks to address issues regarding the compulsory purchase by local authorities of vacant sites.

Private sites as well as public sites are derelict and vacant. Those who attended the meeting of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Planning, Housing, Community and Local Government last week heard from a number of witnesses who came before it. It was a shocking indictment of local authorities that people could come before the committee as witnesses and share statistics, which I will not bandy around because I want to keep the message simple, that hundreds of real estate units and land in local authority hands are vacant. This is at a time we have a housing crisis in these local authority areas. I am seriously coming to the view we need to check the capacity, commitment and enthusiasm of some local authorities to tackle this full on. I do not doubt for one minute the Minister's commitment to Rebuilding Ireland. I do not believe anyone in either House doubts his absolute commitment to see it through.

I took the time to read a number of the audits from the local government auditing service carried out by the Department. It is another day's work, but I would like to see this changed as part of ongoing local government reform. We must deal with what we have. The local government auditor of a number of local authorities expressed serious concerns, and this is all on the record and on the Department's website, about a number of local authorities which failed repeatedly to comply with the digitised property asset register. It is hard to believe there are local authorities in the country which do not have properly digitalised records of their property register. These are public assets, public land and public money. This is at a time we have a housing crisis. As part of the debate, I ask the Minister to take this on board and ask the officials in the auditing service to provide him with a list of the local authorities which have failed consistently to carry out this work. The local authority chief executives state they do not have the necessary resources. That is disgrace at the time we are looking for property assets and looking to avail of any property we have in local authority areas. I raise this because it is an important issue.

I also want to speak about private sites. I go directly to people and ask them what are the problems. I am told by local authority chief executives that local authorities do not have the money. They are most reluctant to engage in compulsory purchase orders. They state they do not have a pool of money set aside to pay for them, and that there is a lot of litigation involved with the possibility of constitutional rights to property issues being raised, and they do not have the stomach for it. They have not done it. I will tee up a parliamentary question for one of my independent colleagues in the Dáil this week to ask the Minister some of these questions because they are so important. We need to see a register, in tabular form, for all local authority areas of what property they acquired in the past three years, for how much and what process has been initiated. I will undertake to do this tomorrow because it is an important piece of scrutiny with regard to local authorities.

We have spoken about small sites. The Bill is attempting to address issues with infill small sites which are also critical. It is not unreasonable to fast track and bring forward to 2017 some of the measures. It is important. I have spoken about Rebuilding Ireland and I am committed to the Minister's objectives in this regard and the various pillars. It is a multifaceted approach. The Minister has spelled this out and it is the dead right policy to follow.

Yesterday, I went to Ellis Quay and I compliment the Minister because it is an amazing hostel. It backs onto Aaron Quay and we had a walk-through of the entire development and met many of the people who live there. They are very happy and that is great. It is a good story and I urge everyone to go and look at it. Most importantly, the people living there are happy and feel safe. A number of people said they had a bed to come home to and they are guaranteed a bed for the next six months. We heard about the one to one supports, and all the team building and access to social services. It was very impressive and I thank the Minister and salute all those involved. When we left with some of the people from the Peter McVerry Trust, we were waiting for a taxi to return to Leinster House to do our work. One of the people living in the house asked us to look across the road at Aaron Quay and the back of Smithfield. We were told there are three or four sites there. A woman told us she has been living on Aaron Quay Terrace for 50 years and one of the sites has been empty all of that time. We really do have a crisis, but here we are with the three buildings directly opposite the hostel derelict for years and no one seems to want to do anything about it.

I am sympathetic and supportive of the Bill and I thank its proposers. I hope it passes Second Stage because it would be important. I ask the Minister to take on board the issue of the register of every local authority, and make a commitment that he will ask them if he can, and I know they are under other pressures, to make a commitment to file within three months with the Department a register of all their assets. I also ask the Minister to examine other assets which may be in the hands of Departments or State agencies.