Laura Harmon (Labour)

I welcome the Minister of State. I am pleased to support this important Bill from Senator Noonan. I am delighted that the Cross-Party Group is bringing this forward as part of our Private Members’ time this evening. It is important that we pass this Bill without delay. There has already been too much delay in terms of addressing not only the housing crisis but also the high levels of dereliction and vacancy throughout the country.

I will speak in particular about Cork, where I am from. We see report after report but recently we saw a GeoDirectory residential buildings report which showed high levels of dereliction and vacancy in Cork and across Ireland with 10% of homes in Cork either vacant or derelict. These are shocking figures. More than 80,000 dwellings were recorded as vacant with more than 20,000 derelict units scattered nationwide in the final quarter of last year. Some 3.6% of Cork’s housing stock is estimated to be vacant and 6.4% is estimated to be derelict. This is the fourth-highest percentage in Ireland. However, this is not the full picture because we do not even have a full register of how many properties actually exist in the country in general. That does not exist. We know from the 2022 census that there were over 166,000 vacant homes identified at that point. We cannot allow the hoarding of property to continue particularly in a housing crisis. There must be stronger and more significant financial penalties in place. I am speaking for a generation that is not only locked out of the housing market but locked into spiralling rents. We absolutely cannot afford to have a whole generation of pensioners in the future who are renting. It is a poverty ticking time bomb. This Bill will form part of the solution to getting some of these properties onto the market and back in use again, so that people can live in them and make them their homes.

Dereliction has an impact. Vacancy has an impact. It has an impact on how our societies grow, on people's mental health, on physical space and physical security as well. Dereliction is a form of vandalism in our society and it is an absolute kick in the teeth to people who do not have their own homes. I refer to the more than 15,000 people who are currently homeless and do not have a roof over their head or a home to call their own. Imagine how it is for people who do not have their own homes to walk down the street every day and see these boarded-up, vacant properties. It has to stop. It is keeping properties off the market and contributing to rising house prices. Research has been done by Frank O'Connor and Jude Sherry, who set up Derelict Ireland. Within 2 km of Cork City centre, there are 700 derelict properties. This is a blight on our towns and cities and on our society. We need to pass this Bill. I thank Senator Noonan for bringing it forward today.