Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 26 July 2017
1677. Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett asked the Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government the number of vacant properties; the number suitable for social housing; the number that have been considered for acquisition by local authorities broken down by authority; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [36348/17]
Amharc ar fhreagraWhile my Department does not hold the information requested, the Central Statistics Office has made available a variety of data from Census 2016 on vacant residential properties. For example, CSO published a comprehensive report on 20 April 2017 entitled Profile 1 - Housing in Ireland which can be accessed via the following link: http://www.cso.ie/en/census/census2016reports/census2016publicationschedule/.
As per this Census 2016 data, the total housing stock in the State was 2,006,645, of which 183,312 were classified as vacant households (excluding holiday homes), representing around 9% of the overall national housing stock. Furthermore, almost 80,000 vacant dwellings were recorded in our cities and large towns. Further information on the number of vacant residential properties by small area has been made available on the CSO website from 20 July 2017 at the following link: http://census.cso.ie/sapmap/ .
While building new homes is a significant element of the Rebuilding Ireland Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness, Pillar 5 of the Action Plan 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 this end, the Housing Agency established a working group comprising senior representatives from my Department, local authorities and from the Housing Agency itself to inform the Strategy. My Department has received the output from the work of this Group and is presently engaging with key Departments and Agencies to consider the analysis and agree on the recommended actions, prior to publication.
I would like to see as much ambition as possible in bringing as many viable vacant properties back into use at an early stage. I intend, as part of the targeted review of Rebuilding Ireland, to explore what further actions can be taken and what new ideas we can bring to bear, in close liaison with Ministerial colleagues. If budgetary measures are needed to reinforce the ambition, this may delay the publication of the Strategy. But this will not delay the commencement of important work at local level in gathering more accurate and up-to-date information on where vacant properties are and who owns them, so that we can facilitate the re-use of many vacant properties, particularly in our cities and towns.
Following my meeting with local authority Chief Executives last Thursday (20 July), I am eager to advance a number of early key actions with local authorities to ensure that the timing of publication will not delay actions to get housing stock back into use.
Ahead of finalisation of the Strategy, it is important to note that my Department has already introduced a number of significant measures under Pillar 5 of Rebuilding Ireland to incentivise the increased use of vacant housing stock to help meet the needs of those in receipt of social housing assistance. These initiatives include the Repair and Leasing Scheme, the Buy and Renew Scheme, and the Housing Agency acquisitions fund, all of which have the potential to bring more vacant and under-utilised properties back into use to meet social housing needs.
