An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business Seanad Éireann — 2026-05-12 ============================================================ Martin Conway (IND), Administrative Panel I support the calls made regarding the National Ambulance Service and the need for urgent further engagement. We had the Minister for Health in Clare yesterday. She was out in the very west of Clare, in Kilkee, and she saw for herself the distances involved. People who suffer most when there is a strike are the vulnerable people and those who are the furthest distance away from the emergency departments. I call on all parties to reflect because it is critical at this stage. I call for a national audit on vacant properties in the ownership of the State. Between local authorities, the HSE, Irish Rail, Bus Éireann, the Department of education and the myriad other State and semi-State organisations and so on, the amount of derelict property is significant. We are in a housing crisis and, in that context, we need to look at derelict properties. I have highlighted on a number of occasions properties in County Clare that have been idle for years, some owned by the OPW. There is a significant estate of property owned by the OPW that is lying vacant. I suggest that in every county in this country there are houses in the ownership of the OPW that are boarded up for one reason or another. They exist in many of our towns and villages. It is not just the OPW; it is a myriad of agencies across the State spectrum. I would like to see an audit led by the Department of the Taoiseach to establish exactly where we are and how these properties can be brought into use, starting with the ones that have been vacant for many years and moving along to the ones vacant for a small number of years. It would be an exercise worth doing because, at the end of the day, the State is the biggest property owner in the country. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-05-12/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:55+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-05-12