Fintan Warfield (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The conversation about Seanad reform has slowed. The programme for Government is completely silent on the need for Seanad reform. I am concerned that the conversation has slowed.

We have had a Bill from Senator McDowell and others. This is essentially the work of the Seanad reform implementation group that was set up by Deputy Leo Varadkar when he was Taoiseach. I do not want the work of that group, which I was involved in, to go to waste.

I encourage all the new Senators to embrace the Seanad reform conversation and the need for reform. It is not good enough to push all these issues off to the electoral commission and say that the commission will deal with votes for those aged 16 years and Seanad reform and the myriad issues facing electoral reform. We need to take responsibility for these issues.

Christina Finn is writing in the Journaltoday about the vacant apartments and investment funds sitting on huge swathes of vacant apartments throughout the State. This is a scandal when we are in a housing crisis. There are 183,000 vacant homes in this State, excluding holiday homes. Vacant housing is anti-social and irresponsible. There is extraordinary potential that could be tapped by tackling vacancy in terms of urban regeneration that is socially, environmentally and economically sustainable. These premises do not need new schools or roads. They have services like water. The turnaround can be at a fraction of the cost of new-build premises.

There are three Government schemes that tackle vacancy - I will not go through them. Combined, these schemes have reached and achieved only 30% of their collective target of 5,600 homes. A little over 1,600 homes have been brought back into use. This is simply not good enough during the housing crisis. The repair and lease scheme, building renewal scheme and the housing agency fund need to be resourced by Government to end the crisis in vacancy.