Departmental Data

Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 13 May 2021

Thursday, 13 May 2021

Questions (263, 264, 265)

David Stanton

Question:

263. Deputy David Stanton asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage the number of properties that have been registered on a website (details supplied) in each year since it was established by county; the number of these properties that have been brought back into use in each of these years by county; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [25398/21]

David Stanton

Question:

264. Deputy David Stanton asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage the local authorities that have put in place a vacant homes action plan as required by circular PL7/2017; if he has received feedback on the effectiveness or otherwise of these action plans; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [25405/21]

David Stanton

Question:

265. Deputy David Stanton asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage the additional supports that his Department has made available to the respective local authorities to enable them to appoint vacant home officers; the number of such officers appointed by each local authority in tabular form; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [25407/21]

Written answers

Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage

I propose to take Questions Nos. 263, 264 and 265 together.

The National Vacant Housing Reuse Strategy, which was published by my Department in 2018, strives to provide a targeted, effective and co-ordinated approach to identifying and tackling vacancy across Ireland. To assist local authorities in achieving this objective, my Department has, since 2018, provided funding to each local authority of €50,000 per annum. This funding is to support the work of a Vacant Homes Office, including a Vacant Homes Officer for each local authority.

The provision of central funding provides for focus to be given to the role of the Office and reinforces the capacity of the Department’s Vacant Homes Unit to liaise with and seek information/statistics from a dedicated contact point within each local authority. All 31 local authorities have claimed their funding up to June 2021 and this funding has been secured up to June 2022.Table 1 below lists the number of Vacant Homes Officers in each local authority on a full or part-time basis:

Table 1

Local Authority	No. of Vacant Homes Officers	Full-time	Part-time
Carlow	1		1
Cavan	1		1
Clare	1	1
Cork City	1		1
Cork County	2		2
Donegal	1		1
Dublin City	3	1	2
Dun Laoghaire	1		1
Fingal	1		1
Galway City	1		1
Galway County	1		1
Kerry	1	1
Kildare	1		1
Kilkenny	1		1
Laois	1		1
Leitrim	1		1
Limerick	1		1
Longford	1		1
Louth	1		1
Mayo	1		1
Meath	2		2
Monaghan	2		2
Offaly	1		1
Roscommon	1		1
Sligo	2		2
South Dublin	1		1
Tipperary	1		1
Waterford	1		1
Westmeath	1		1
Wexford	1		1
Wicklow	1		1

Each of the 31 local authorities have prepared a Vacant Homes Action Plan for their administrative area. The Vacant Home Action Plan identifies the scale of vacant homes in a local authority’s jurisdiction and sets ambitious but realistic targets of the number of vacant homes that can ultimately be brought back into use.

As emphasised in the National Vacant Housing Reuse Strategy, securing improved data and analysis on vacancy allows for more robust monitoring of vacancy at a national level and improved outputs at local level. To help record levels of vacancy, the vacanthomes.ie website has been developed by Mayo County Council on behalf of the local government sector. This provides a central portal for individuals to anonymously log possible vacant properties and alert local authorities to those properties. As appropriate, Vacant Homes Officers can then follow up with the owners to see whether the house can be re-used quickly.

The latest statistics from vacanthomes.ie indicate that 5,210 properties have been recorded on the website since 2017.

Table 2 below indicates the number of properties registered on vacanthomes.ie by year and county:

Table 2 Vacant Homes Logged

Local Authority	Dec 2017	Dec 2018	Dec 2019	Dec 2020	11 May 2021
Leinster
Carlow	18	19	29	41	44
Dublin City	247	350	436	499	542
DLR	60	60	102	124	130
Fingal	49	60	82	104	122
Kildare	58	90	161	198	208
Kilkenny	27	35	46	60	75
Laois	12	21	38	52	56
Longford	14	17	29	34	40
Louth	60	97	151	169	178
Meath	37	103	140	153	163
Offaly	26	3	38	84	92
SDCC	75	98	143	177	211
Westmeath	58	69	87	105	108
Wexford	35	63	91	105	114
Wicklow	34	54	73	84	90
Total	810	1139	1646	1989	2173
Munster
Clare	23	21	63	123	150
Cork City	73	113	136	166	178
Cork County	177	362	588	667	1072
Kerry	43	45	49	61	66
Limerick City	8	18	38	45	49
Limerick County	23	46	112	138	147
Tipperary	34	44	75	93	107
Waterford City	8	28	42	51	58
Waterford County	16	57	83	104	124
Total	405	734	1186	144	1951
Connacht
Galway City	27	55	102	124	129
Galway County	64	92	107	129	137
Leitrim	9	16	41	43	44
Mayo	62	76	177	205	221
Roscommon	19	28	55	76	84
Sligo	16	24	39	45	47
Total	197	291	521	662	662
Ulster
Cavan	9	15	49	272	319
Donegal	21	34	54	67	85
Monaghan	15	17	22	16	20
Total	45	66	125	355	424
Grand Total	1457	2230	3478	4414	5210

Table 3 in the excel spreadsheet attached provides the number of properties brought back into use by year and county under the Repair and Lease Scheme, the Housing Agency Acquisitions Fund and the Buy and Renew Scheme. These are the three key supports available from my Department to owners to bring vacant housing stock back into use as social housing.

Properties Registered

Question No. 264 answered with Question No. 263.

Question No. 265 answered with Question No. 263.