Rebecca Moynihan (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I wish to raise the issue of dereliction in our towns and cities. A report has just been published by the Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage on the issue of dereliction. We have worked on this issue for a number of months and have reached a cross-party and broad-based consensus on some of the issues that have to be tackled in order to tackle dereliction. Unfortunately, some of the indications we see coming from the Department are that there are no low-hanging fruit when it comes to dereliction and that a vacant sites tax will not bring in much money, so it is not worth doing and administering. That is very worrying.

The issue of dereliction is not just about raising money and taxes. It is to try to bring properties that could be used as housing back into use or if they could be used for something else they could be brought back into use as smaller businesses. If the owners cannot do that, there should be a tax on them so they will sell them on to somebody else who can afford to do it. Dereliction is a blight. It is not just one of the underlying causes of the housing crisis, it is also a blight on our towns and cities and it causes anti-social behaviour according to the broken-window theory.

I will outline some of the suggestions on which there is that cross-party, broad-based consensus. The first is to collect the proper amount of data on what is actually derelict and then categorise that information and break it down. Some of it may be housing, some might be otherwise. Some may have issues with probate, but some could potentially be brought back into use. We should include things such as a vacant homes tax. For example, if somebody got permission for residential use and it is registered and zoned as residential, a vacant homes tax should apply to it if it is willfully being left vacant. That applies to, for example, my village of Chapelizod. Half of it could be brought back into use for housing, but instead, it is lying there derelict.

The second one is a zoned land tax. The vacant sites tax had so many exemptions that it did not work. However, the zoned land tax that has been passed also has exemptions. I am afraid that by the time it is implemented, two years hence and at a lesser rate, there will be so many exemptions it will not be worthwhile. We have to look at streamlining the appeals process around that.

Finally, there should be an expansion of the definition of what is derelict. Often, the legal interpretation that local authorities have of what is derelict is very different from what we or people on the street know and see as being derelict. Each local authority should have a derelict sites section. It could emulate the amazing work that the repair and lease scheme has done in places such as Waterford and Louth in terms of tackling dereliction in a city.

I ask the Leader for a debate on that. I believe we are proposing that time be put aside in both Houses to have a debate on the report. I cannot emphasise enough that a vacant homes tax in Housing for All and in the programme for Government is an essential part of the response because sometimes, people wilfully leave property that could be used for housing vacant. I can point to a number of places in my constituency where that is the case and local authorities cannot take action on it. We need to have carrots for people, but we also must introduce the sticks to try to get people to bring good land that is connected to services back into use.