Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 1 June 2022
94. Deputy James Lawless asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage if he will provide a report detailing the number of vacant residential units that were returned to active residential use in each local authority after availing of funding from the repair and lease and buy and renew schemes for each year from 2014 to date, in tabular form. [28274/22]
View answerThe Living City Initiative is a tax-based measure aimed at the regeneration of the historic inner cities of Dublin, Cork, Galway, Kilkenny, Limerick and Waterford.
The scheme provides income or corporation tax relief for expenditure on refurbishment and conversion work that is carried out in either residential properties or certain commercial properties.
The Initiative targets particular areas of the cities which are most in need of regeneration, especially inner city areas. These are areas chosen by the relevant councils which are largely comprised of dwellings built before 1915, where there is above average unemployment and which demonstrate clear evidence of neglect, dereliction and under-use.
Revenue advise me that it is not possible to specify the extent to which tax relief under the scheme may have supported qualifying work within each of the local authority areas; and that statistical data are not available on the specific number of vacant residential units that have been returned to active residential use under the Living City Initiative from 2014 to date.
Data in relation to claims for the Living City Initiative are available on the Revenue website for the years 2013 to 2018, the latest year for which fully analysed data are available, at:
www.revenue.ie/en/corporate/information-about-revenue/statistics/tax-expenditures/property-reliefs.aspx.
This report will be updated over the coming months with data for both 2019 and 2020. The available data for the scheme are reproduced below:
Living City Initiative
|
Tax Year |
Amount claimed (€m) |
Maximum tax cost* (€m) |
Number of claimants |
|
2018 |
0.5 |
0.2 |
27 |
|
2017 |
0.4 |
0.2 |
23 |
|
2016 |
0.5 |
0.2 |
15 |
|
2015 |
0.5 |
0.2 |
13 |
|
2014 |
0.2 |
0.10 |
N/A |
|
2013 |
0.1 |
0.0 |
N/A |
*assumed at 40% for IT and 12.5% for CT.
