Michael D'Arcy (Wexford, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I assure the Senator that everything from the Peter McVerry Trust is taken seriously with regard to addressing homelessness and housing. The Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government, Deputy Eoghan Murphy, is very much in agreement that tackling the issue of vacant housing, derelict sites and under-utilised spaces, as advocated by the trust, is a key part of the comprehensive approach required to address our current housing challenges. It is good to see that organisations such as the trust are promoting the take-up of important schemes such as the repair and leasing and buy and renew schemes introduced by the Department to maximise their impact. In this regard, I highlight the importance the Government attaches to taking joined-up action with local authorities, property owners and organisations such as the Peter McVerry Trust on empty or under-utilised buildings to secure additional homes as early as possible.

Whereas building new homes is a significant element of Rebuilding Ireland, the Government's Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness, it is dear that an effective and quick way to meet housing needs is to make the most efficient use of the housing stock we already have, across all forms of tenure, as an important source of potential housing supply. Pillar 5 of the Rebuilding Ireland action plan is specifically focused on utilising the existing housing stock and one of its key actions is to develop a national vacant housing re-use strategy to ensure that the existing vacant housing stock throughout the country, in both the public and private sectors, is used to the optimum degree possible. With the 2016 census showing more than 180,000 vacant homes across the country, excluding holiday homes, representing approximately 9% of the overall national housing stock, we must assess where and how many of these empty homes can be quickly brought back into use. Almost 80,000 vacant dwellings were recorded in our cities and large towns. This level of vacancy is unacceptable when we are faced with such a severe housing shortage.

In compiling a register of vacant units, especially in and around our cities and larger towns where demand is greatest and where the pressure on house prices and rents is most acute, local authorities are best placed to identify these vacancy hot spots, tracking what has changed on the ground since the April 2016 census count, and to set out a range of actions, in collaboration with property owners, to bring as many of these vacant houses and buildings back into use. A working group led by the Housing Agency has done considerable research work to date. Using the more detailed localised data from the census, the Minister, Deputy Eoghan Murphy, is now considering developing a package of actions to increase the ambition and mobilise all the key arms of the State to work together on this crucial initiative.

This analysis will feed into the targeted review of Rebuilding Ireland which the Minister is now leading, to focus on what further actions can be taken and what new ideas we can bring to bear. If budgetary measures are needed to reinforce the ambition, this may delay the publication of the strategy until after the summer. However, this will not delay the commencement of important work at local level in gathering more up-to-date information on where vacant properties are and who owns them, so we can facilitate the re-use of many vacant properties, particularly in our cities and towns.

Indeed, ahead of finalisation of the strategy, it is worth noting that the Department has already activated a number of significant measures to incentivise the increased use of vacant housing stock to help meet the needs of those in receipt of social housing assistance. These initiatives include the repair and leasing scheme, the buy and renew scheme and the Housing Agency acquisitions fund, all of which are available to provide opportunities for owners of vacant properties to get them back into use to meet social housing need in their areas.