Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions Dail Éireann — 2026-06-16 ============================================================ Ivana Bacik (LAB), Dublin Bay South The Minister for housing has declared a "war on dereliction"; fighting talk and a striking turn of phrase. This is the Government's tactic. It is to flood the airwaves with repeated announcements, deflect responsibility and spin its failures to save face. This week, the Tánaiste sought to pin responsibility for vacancy and dereliction on councils alone, a convenient distraction from years of Government failure. Who has been in charge of national housing policy for the past decade? It is the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste. For years, the Government ignored the growing number of vacant and derelict properties blighting the country. Meanwhile, rents and house prices have spiralled, homelessness continues to rise and people are losing hope. After years of inaction, it seems the best response from the Government will be a thinly-veiled attempt to pass the buck. What has this so-called war on dereliction delivered? A delayed measure, already announced in last year's budget, the renaming of a 35-year-old levy and a promise that Revenue will now collect it. If it worked, this could be significant but, as with so many of the Government's housing plans, it is a half measure, delayed and diluted, and arbitrarily deployed, initially only to urban areas with populations of 4,000 or more. As if dereliction did not affect small towns and villages when we all know it is a blight on every community. PAYE tax is paid by every employee, so why this selective approach? The Government said it is phasing this in but why this approach and why rule out these small towns and villages which are also blighted by dereliction? Speculators and land hoarders in every part of the country, not just in larger urban centres, are profiting from the misery caused by the chronic shortage of homes so unless this new tax is set at an effective and meaningful level, speculators will keep sitting on their assets, literally. Derelict buildings on empty streets across the country will remain a visual reminder of the Government's failure to get off the fence and fix housing. We are all hearing from people who have been directly affected by this. Every day, I hear from people who have received an eviction notice and who can find nowhere else; nowhere to rent and nowhere to buy. Each case and each family situation is heartbreaking. I am supporting one such mother of three, who has had her eviction notice and now feels she has no option but to overhold. She and her young family have literally nowhere to go and in Dublin Bay South, they see vacant houses and derelict sites all around them. People like that young mother need the Government to act now on dereliction. The Labour Party is calling for the introduction of compulsory sales orders - a new mechanism to force persistently vacant and derelict properties back into use. We are calling on the Government to fund vacancy and dereliction teams in local authorities across the country. The Taoiseach is not a commentator; he has effectively been in government for a decade, so when will he and his Ministers stop blaming everyone else for the vacancy and dereliction crisis? Will the Government introduce the stronger measures needed to bring empty homes back into use and to generate greater housing supply to fix this housing crisis? --- 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/dail/2026-06-16/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-27T06:54:50+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-06-16