John Cummins (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Leas-Chathaoirleach. I also thank the Minister of State, Deputy Fleming, for coming to the House this morning to take this Commencement matter. I am sure he will agree with me that tackling vacancy and dereliction across our cities, towns, villages and rural countryside is something of great importance. It is a passion of mine. I have worked constructively since my election to this House and my appointment to the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage to engage with Department officials and the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Deputy O'Brien, and the Minister of State, Deputy Peter Burke, on a number of proposals, some of which have been acted on and some of which are still under consideration. I hop that by tabling this Commencement matter this morning, we can move the dial on one particular scheme which has the potential to do a whole lot more.

In my county of Waterford, we have had tremendous success with schemes such as the repair and lease scheme, the buy and renew scheme and, to a lesser extent, the Living City initiative, which has been extended in budget 2023 to the end of 2027 and which is a welcome move. The benefits of bringing vacant and derelict buildings back into productive use are huge. It cleans up streetscapes, provides much-needed homes and is environmentally sound because it results in less carbon as it reuses what is already there.

The Croí Cónaithe towns and villages fund has been very well received across the country. I understand that local authorities have had very strong interest from prospective property owners looking to bring vacant and derelict properties back into productive use. With success of television programmes, such as "Room to Improve", "The Great House Revival" and "Cheap Irish Homes", we have seen what is possible when we think outside the box in delivering our dream home.

The obvious difficulty with vacant and derelict properties is that one does not know what is going to be there when one opens the property up. That is why this scheme, which provides a grant support of up to €50,000, is so welcome. The fact that it can be combined with measures such as Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland, SEAI, grants gives people the potential to have a significant portion of the costs of renovation covered through grant aid, which is very important for young individuals and couples in particular who are trying to get their foot on the ladder.Not everybody wants to own or can afford to own a brand-new home in a city or a town. The target under the scheme of 2,000 properties by the end of 2025 is not ambitious enough. We should be aiming to deliver a multiple of that but we will not do that if we do not expand the scheme to rural one-off houses and to cities and suburbs. I hope the Minister of State will be able to give a positive response as to the direction of travel in this space. The benefit of supporting rural one-off vacant and derelict properties is huge. It benefits rural communities, brings people back into the areas and supports the services, clubs and schools in those areas. The ideology within the Department that we should not support the renovation of rural one-off houses, in particular, needs to be consigned to the dustbin, to be quite frank. We need to be more ambitious with this scheme. It is an excellent scheme that is there to support first-time buyers in owning their own houses but we need to expand it to our cities and suburbs and to rural one-off houses.