Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The taxpayer is committed to delivering 10,000 social houses a year and more. When we say we have to build approximately 33,000 houses per year, the taxpayer cannot and should not pay for all of them. It is a great deal of tax to collect and we need tax for everywhere else, such as schools, hospitals and many other areas. Choices must be made. How does one best deliver housing for everybody at the right price? We firmly believe that management of State-owned land is the key to doing that and the concept will be proven again as it has been in other countries where it has worked effectively to deliver thousands of homes. It will work here also if we get in behind it. Others can have different proposals, which is fine, but our job is to deliver housing for everybody and to put a plan in place to achieve that.

To further our ambition to maximise utilisation of housing stock my Department published the National Vacant Housing Reuse Strategy 2018-2021 in July this year, which builds on significant work begun in 2016 and 2017 by various stakeholders, including the Housing Agency, local authorities and AHBs in order to meet our pillar 5 goals. The strategy sets out a number of concrete actions such as the adoption of vacant homes action plans by all local authorities and the appointment of vacant homes officers, VHOs, funded by our Department, to co-ordinate local actions addressing vacancy. It also provides a clearly signposted source of information for owners of vacant homes, including the funding options that are available, to assist in bringing vacant

homes back into productive use.

All the VHOs visited our Department yesterday and I spent a few hours with them talking through all the different options and solutions. There is much we can do to tackle vacancy and vacant homes, but it is not straightforward or as simple as saying that there are 1,000 empty houses over there, there are 1,000 people who need them over here, and we will put them together. It does not work that way. Much work is required on a vacant house, such as finding out why it is vacant, who owns it, when it was last owned, where the owner is and so on. Much red tape is involved, but it is work worth doing. It does not provide a quick win in one week, but it will provide quick wins over time and it will bring vacant properties back into use.

The State has stepped up here. In the past two and a half years, more than 9,400 vacant State properties were brought back into the system. The work was started by Senator Coffey when he was Minister of State, and it targeted voids which are now back in the system. That is tackling vacancy. We all know there are many more vacant houses out there, although I do not believe the figures are as high as they were in the census because we have worked through the vacancies with our local authorities street by street and the percentages are much less than people say. They are significant, however, and there are still many vacant homes.

We will work with the sector to bring those homes forward but we must bear in mind that in most cases they are people's private properties, and the owners have rights under our Constitution. It is not a case, therefore, of just grabbing them. It is better to approach it through the legal system and also through the "carrot" approach in order that it is worthwhile for everyone, where houses can be brought back into use to provide homes for people. We are doing that with some great success in some areas through the repair and lease scheme and the purchase and renew scheme, which are schemes that could be scaled up. We have ambition for them and money is behind them, but for whatever reason they are not really reaching the big numbers yet. The schemes will improve when they are tweaked, however, and there has been much interest in the past year with approximately 1,000 applicants for the repair and lease scheme.These schemes have great potential but they need to be worked on, which is the job of the vacant homes officer in each local authority. We are working on this. It is right for every community to deal with vacancies. It is right from a neighbour's point of view with regard utilising the stock and it will give us new homes. Members should not think it is easy to grab them and use them and away we go. It just does not work that way. It is like everything to do with housing. We have to think it through, put a plan in place to make it happen, fund it and then deliver it. It is not just writing about it. We have to go through the procedure. This is what the action plan for housing is about. That is what we are here to debate. It is a well thought out plan, which is structured and funded. I can confidently say it is a delivering plan. It might not answer everybody's problem but it is delivering on its targets are and on what it is trying to achieve. We will do more with it, which is what we are trying to do here.

I am conscious we are running out of time. No doubt there will be questions on the rental sector and I can discuss it afterwards. Another rental Bill is due in the House in the coming weeks that will deal with some of the concerns. We are conscious we must have a functioning rental sector and this is a big part of Rebuilding Ireland. It is an area in which we are constantly trying to intervene and manage. I must stress that we have to be careful when it comes to the rental market. We want to attract investment and encourage people to spend money on delivering housing for the rental sector because the taxpayer cannot do it all. With the best will in the world, it is just not possible in the real world. We must encourage investment. It is about getting the balance right between the rules and regulations, encouraging investment and giving protection, security and a top-class service to tenants. The Bill that is coming through is complex. It is with the Office of the Attorney General and it will be in the Houses very soon for debate. It will deal with anyone who tries to breach the rent caps; strengthen the powers of the Residential Tenancies Board, RTB; further tighten the operation of any exemptions; enhance the rental data from RTB registrations to provide more transparency on rents being paid; double the lowest period for renters where notice to quit is served after six months; and seek to extend rent caps to student accommodation.

Student accommodation is another area we are targeting. There will always be debate on the cost of purpose-built student accommodation but its supply has greatly increased since we started Rebuilding Ireland. We set out a plan and we are working with the Department of Education and Skills to deal specifically with student accommodation. We recognised from the reports that there was a shortage of more than 20,000 student bed spaces in pressure areas such as Dublin. This meant students could not always have the accommodation they needed. Very often, family homes needed for families in emergency accommodation were being used by students. It was a clear target area. Thankfully, over the past year to 18 months, we have seen new purpose-built student beds with more than 7,500 delivered. Approximately 4,000 are being delivered on site and another 6,000 have come through the planning system. There is a lot of action in this area. We are building on this to do more because it is an important area to get right with regard to student accommodation and with regard to utilising existing housing stock built for families that should be used for the families who need it. Purpose-built student accommodation is more suitable for students.