Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 25 May 2017
35. Deputy Niamh Smyth asked the Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government the expected publication date for a new national vacant housing reuse strategy; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [24789/17]
View answerPillar 5 of the Government's Rebuilding Ireland: Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness is specifically focused on Utilising Existing Housing Stock, with a key objective of ensuring that the existing vacant housing stock throughout the country and across all forms of tenure, in both the public and private sectors, is used to the optimum degree possible. In this regard, Action 5.1 of Rebuilding Ireland commits to the development of a National Vacant Housing Re-Use Strategy, informed by Census 2016 data, to
- inform the compilation of a register of vacant units across the country,
- identify the number, location and reasons for longer-term vacancies (i.e. over 6 months) in high demand areas, and
- set out a range of actions to bring vacant units back into reuse.
To this end, the Housing Agency, which has lead responsibility for co-ordinating the development of the Strategy, established a working group comprising senior representatives from my Department, local authorities and from the Housing Agency itself to inform the Strategy. As the deliberations of Working Group were nearing completion, it was agreed to await publication last month of 2016 Census data on housing so as to ensure the Strategy would be informed by the most up-to-date and comprehensive data available.
It is now anticipated that the Strategy will be published in the coming weeks.
