Post-European Council Meeting: Statements
Dail Éireann — 2023-04-18
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Paul Donnelly (SF), Dublin West

I was contacted last week by a constituent. She said, "I am facing homelessness and I don't know where I'm going to go, but there's a house in my area that has been empty for ages." I am not the only one who gets these messages with photos of empty houses through Facebook and via email. I am not the only one who sees empty homes in every single estate with leaflets stacked high in hallways. We trek back down the driveway and we wonder what the backstory is. We cannot get every single house back into use because there are legitimate reasons why some are empty. However, there are tens of thousands of empty houses that are ready to be occupied. Would it not be amazing if this Government were as ruthless in implementing its stated policy of a vacant homes tax as it was in ending the eviction ban?

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2023-04-18/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:51:46+00:00
Sitting date: 2023-04-18