Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank Senator Boyhan for his kind words. Turning to these two amendments, vacancy in residential units is an issue, there is no question about that. One of the four pathways in Housing for All policy is concerned with how we can tackle vacancy. It applies to existing and new stock. We discussed the zoned land tax. It is going to be significant and a major change from what exists now. In addition, the other aspect that will be significant in this regard is the vacant property tax that I and the Minister for Finance, Deputy Donohoe, will be bringing forward. It will be assessed through the local property tax, LPT, returns and it will be significant in itself. I do not want to see new properties, or any properties, vacant around the place.

I understand the thrust of the Senator's arguments in these amendments and what she is seeking to achieve. Realistically speaking, however, I do not envisage that there will be many LRD applications in this timeframe. If we can get this legislation enacted by the end of the year and it then becomes law, I expect that 17 December will be the date for these new arrangements to take effect. We will be then be watching what happens in this regard closely and gathering data on vacancy. The Housing for All policy has several serious actions that we must undertake in this context. Therefore, we will track this data, but I do not think that this legislation is the right place to have tight timescales of 18 months, or even 12 months, from the passing of the Bill into law, necessitating the laying of a report before the Houses on the three aspects specified in amendment No. 41.

I want homes for people to live in, as we all do. We want people to be able to buy them, and in that regard we have already brought in the owner-occupier guarantee, as well as all the other things we have discussed. Therefore, I do not think that these amendments are appropriate for inclusion in this legislation. The Senator makes a good point in the sense that one of my, and the Government's, priorities is to tackle the whole area of vacancy, and we will do that. We certainly cannot have a situation where a sizeable proportion of new developments are being left empty.That will be tackled through the vacant property tax as well as the zoned land tax, which will replace the vacant site levy which did not collect the money that it should have because it was a levy. The tax will be administered by the Revenue Commissioners. It is very significant even at 3%, which some have said is not significant. For a site valued at €1 million it is a €30,000 fine per annum. It will not be long before that builds up to a sizeable portion of the value of the site. We are doing that. In addition, we have put our money where our mouth is on this. We brought forward the legislation to replace the SHDs. The Government has done very significant things with regard to planning and housing.

I am conscious of the time for ourselves and, more importantly, for the staff and my officials, so I take the point. It might be something we might potentially return to on Report Stage. The Senator's timelines are far too tight. There could be a mechanism whereby a report would go to the Oireachtas joint committee. That could happen anyway because the Oireachtas joint committee can seek it. It is a new system of planning where we want to see what the throughput is. That was done in SHDs, by the way, so I do not see any difficulty with collating those data. We might have a look at that again on Report Stage and as it moves to the Dáil.