Right across cities, towns and villages, there are empty, vacant, and derelict houses and buildings lying idle. They are being left to rot. These are properties and homes where people should be able to live, work and raise families, but instead they are left derelict and vacant. GeoDirectory has found record levels of commercial vacancy. It has also found that only 2,377 homes have been charged with the vacant homes tax. There are probably two or three times more than that in Cork city alone. This is a shockingly low figure. Why is more not being done to tackle vacancy and dereliction? These empty buildings are ripping the heart out of communities in our cities, towns and villages. They are destroying local economies and forcing people to live in overcrowded, substandard accommodation and in many cases emergency accommodation. More than 5,000 children are in emergency accommodation and at the same time, we have vacant, derelict buildings in every town, city and village. It is madness. What is being done about it? I will give a couple of ideas to show what I am talking about. I have a printed image of a street in Cork. It has been like that for years. It is not just Cork. I have an image of Crumlin village. What could be a lovely house with an extension on it has been boarded up. It is not just that. I have an image of Dublin city centre. A block of houses has been left boarded up to rot while there is a huge waiting list in Dublin for the many people in homeless accommodation. People cannot rent or buy. It is not just here. A massive building in County Kerry is vacant and derelict. I have an image of another in Buncrana, County Donegal. I also have an image of a vacant building in Sligo. In every town and every village, we have boarded-up properties. What is the Government doing about it? We do not know whether these buildings are on the derelict sites levy. Even though the data was collected in quarter 2, and I have looked for it at least ten if not 12 times, I cannot get an answer from the Minister. Will the Minister of State commit to responding to me and to releasing the data in relation to derelict sites levies? Are the levies being charged? How many sites are on the levies? What local authorities are either putting sites on or charging the levies? There is information that needs to be delivered. Will the Minister of State commit to releasing that data? To be honest, it looks like to me that a cover-up is going on around dereliction. We know from previous years that local authorities are underfunded, understaffed and under-resourced. If we want local authorities to deal with this, the Government must support them. I propose that the derelict sites levy be taken off local authorities and given to Revenue because the one thing we know is if Revenue is given the job, it will do that job. What we have at the moment are land hoarders. They do not have to pay the local property tax because the property is derelict. They will not pay the derelict sites levy because local authorities do not have the staff to enforce it. What is happening? Will the Minister of State release the derelict sites data? Will he look at moving the collection of it to the Revenue Commissioners?

Sentiment score: -0.02

I accept that town centre first is a good model. The problem is that only 26 town centres were done in the first three years, between 2021 and 2024, and another 26 have been passed for 2024 and the next three years, as I learned from the answer I got to a parliamentary question. The town centre first policy is a good policy, but it will take 90 years to implement because there are over 800 towns in the State and we are only doing 26 every three years. That is crazy. The Government has a project that is good in principle but it is not funding it and not rolling it out at the level needed to target vacancy and dereliction in town centres. The Minister of State spoke about one vacant homes officer in every local authority. That is a joke. We put pressure on the previous Government to get that one vacant homes officer. What we are looking for is a vacant homes team in each local authority to tackle vacancy and dereliction. I will be honest. We got a response here that sounds great and suggests that there is loads going on. I invite the Minister of State to walk the streets of Dublin with me, and I will also bring him to my home city of Cork, where I will walk him around and show him the dereliction and vacancy. He can list out all the projects but the facts are that houses and buildings are being left to rot in the middle of communities, when we have people who cannot rent or buy and others who are in emergency accommodation. I will say one thing to anyone who is watching or listening. This Saturday at 2.30 p.m. on Grand Parade in Cork city, we are holding a Raise the Roof rally with unions, other left-wing political parties and student unions. I ask anyone who is listening, if they are sick and tired and fed up seeing good buildings left to rot while people have no homes, to come out on Saturday to support Raise the Roof.

Sentiment score: 0.10