On 4 October 2023, more than two years ago, I stood here and raised the disgraceful revelations that the HSE was sitting on a massive portfolio of vacant properties. Over 200 HSE-owned buildings and sites lay idle while the housing crisis tightened its grip on families. Back then, nearly 4,000 children were homeless and average rents for new tenancies stood at €1,590. Today, two years on, more than 5,000 children are without a home and rents for new tenancies have shot up to more than €1,700, and that is before the Government's so-called rent reforms come in. In the two years since the HSE was caught sitting on sites that could be turned into homes, Ireland's housing crisis has become ever more dire. What did we learn just two days ago? In Monday's edition of the Irish Independent, it was reported the HSE still owns nearly 200 vacant properties, more than half of which are officially marked as surplus to requirement. These buildings were supposed to be converted into homes for people and families under the Government's last failed housing plan. Why has so little happened? The housing crisis is at emergency levels. Thousands of children are doing their homework in emergency accommodation. Our streets today are peppered with drenched sleeping bags, abandoned by people sleeping rough who have had to flee from the rain. People on good wages, like the man my office has been helping recently, are giving up hope of ever buying a home. He tells me he saw the one-bedroom apartment he viewed for sale reappear months later on daft.ie for rent, having been snapped up by institutional investors. That is a pattern we are seeing. Yet, the HSE continues to give a bureaucratic shrug in the face of this national crisis. This cavalier approach, and it is not just the HSE, reflects something deeper, a Government dodging delivery. I looked back at the Taoiseach's response to me in 2023 on this question. In his reply, he told me to "get on to Dublin City Council". What a dismissive attitude to the issue of State-owned properties gathering dust while people are sleeping in doorways. In my constituency, Dublin Bay South, just a few hundred metres from here, the Baggot Street hospital still lies empty, an eyesore reminding us of the continued vacancy and dereliction crisis ravaging Irish towns and cities. Over the past four years, I have called for it to be used as accommodation for refugees or healthcare workers or, indeed, for it to be converted into homes by the Land Development Agency, LDA. However, the LDA tells me it has not even been offered the site by the HSE and now the HSE is putting a portion of it on the private market, with apparently no consideration of the public good. It is not just the HSE, as I say. Across the State, public bodies are sitting on properties that could be transformed into safe and secure accommodation and homes. There is a human cost to vacancy. When will the Taoiseach confront the epidemic of vacancy and dereliction, particularly in State-owned properties? When will he lead a co-ordinated national effort to deliver the homes people need?
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It is.
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That is not what we have said.
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It is being sold on the private market. That is the point.
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I know they say attack is the best form of defence, so it is no surprise the Taoiseach chose to go on the attack and to mount an attack on the Labour Party, because he knows that Government policy on vacancy and dereliction is indefensible. He simply has no defence. It has patently failed. It is not just about publicly owned buildings. The Taoiseach and the Government have effectively conceded that the current system, including the derelict sites levy and the derelict sites register, is ineffective. I am looking at the Government's own up-to-date website, which promises to introduce a new derelict property tax. That is an initiative we supported. What are we seeing on the Government's own website? "A preliminary national register of derelict properties will be published in 2027, with the tax starting soon after." That is all the Government can commit to on its own website. The Government has flagged this many times as the key measure it is introducing to tackle vacancy and dereliction. I think the Taoiseach agrees this is a scourge across the community. It is particularly a scourge where the buildings and sites are publicly owned - that is indefensible - but on the Government's own measures, there is no sense of urgency to bringing them in.
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When will we see new derelict property tax? Will the Taoiseach tell us that?
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We supported them.
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When?
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There is no timeline.
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