Gabrielle McFadden (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister. I appreciate the fact that he is here again today. I know how hard he is working on housing and homelessness. There are a lot of things I would like to mention but I do not have time for everything. One of the things I always look at is houses that are in probate and sitting idle while the bereaved family goes through the necessary procedures. Could there not be an incentive for that family to lease the house to a family that is living in a hotel? Surely an incentive could be offered there. It would be a win-win situation for both the family dealing with the probate and the family that is in a hotel.

The Minister talked about advertising. We should be advertising those schemes all of the time. We have community radio in Athlone, which is part-funded by Pobal. Why is the Department not using that radio station to advertise the repair and lease scheme? I was reared on Connaught Street, to which I brought the Minister when we were looking for regeneration money. When I was a child there were 70 families living on that street. It did us no harm to live over a shop. It might have made me a little bit cheeky, but I do not think it did me any harm. Many of those premises are vacant. The county council should be out advertising this scheme and putting families into these premises.

I know we have a vacant homes action plan and vacant homes officers in the county councils, but one vacant homes officer is not enough for the whole of County Westmeath. It is not enough even for Athlone. These officers should be going from door to door finding out exactly why premises are empty and seeing what can be done to bring them back into use.

The other worry I have is that developers are buying properties and sitting on them. They are holding onto them until they can get enough adjacent properties to develop a site. Councils are doing that with CPO purchases as well. That needs to be looked at. There are several such situations in Connaught Street. There is a lot we can do. I know a lot has been done, but we are in a housing crisis and we need to take drastic measures immediately.