Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 23 February 2017
52. Deputy Barry Cowen asked the Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government the status of the progress being made on putting in place a survey and register of vacant private properties in each local authority; and the reason there is no register or database detailing the number of local authority housing that is vacant. [9013/17]
Amharc ar fhreagraPillar 5 of the Government's Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness - Rebuilding Ireland 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 by the first quarter of 2017, 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 coordinating the development of the Strategy, has established a working group in September 2016 comprising of senior representatives from my Department, local authorities and from the Housing Agency itself to inform the Strategy. The Group is due to report by the end of the first quarter of 2017.
As indicated, it is intended to facilitate the development of a national database of vacant houses under the auspices of the National Vacant Housing Re-use Strategy. The database will aim to include:
- the number of vacant homes in each local authority area,
- the addresses of the vacant homes,
- the length of vacancy in each case, and
- the reason(s) for vacancy.
Work is progressing on identifying possible sources of data and information to assist in the most efficient means of compiling such a database. It is intended that the register of vacant housing units will cover all vacant units, both private and state owned, that have the potential to be used for both private and social residential purposes, including individual houses, apartment blocks or individual units within blocks.
In November 2016, the National Oversight and Audit Commission (NOAC) published its report on the 2015 Performance Indicators for local authorities. The report includes various statistics on local authority housing stock, including the percentage of vacant units. The report is available at the following link:
http://noac.ie/noac-reports/.
