Vacant Properties
Dail Éireann — 2026-02-11
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Frankie Feighan (FG), Sligo-Leitrim

I thank Deputy McGrath for his useful information. I will bring it back to the Minister. The Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage is focused on ensuring that existing houses are utilised to their full extent. The Government’s new housing plan, Delivering Homes, Building Communities, reinforces and expands the range of measures being implemented by the Government to work to end dereliction and long-term vacancy. One of these actions involves an expanded buy and renew scheme, which is due to launch imminently. The Minister, Deputy Browne, updated the Government on Tuesday about the scheme. It will allow for suitable vacant and derelict buildings to be remediated back to rental standards and designated as social homes. The scheme will be open to local authorities, approved housing bodies and small builders or contractors. Further information will be available in the coming weeks. It will be a matter for all local authorities, including Tipperary County Council, to identify viable proposals. The Government does not intend to override these important local functions.
As I said, it is unfortunate that some incomplete developments need to be demolished but in the case of this particular development in Tipperary, demolition of these unfinished units is deemed necessary by the local authority given they are in private ownership and not suitable for long-term residential use.
The Deputy outlined that a lot of houses and apartments were built as part of hotel developments around the country. A lot of them are not in use. Anything that we and the local authorities can do to bring them back into use is useful and helpful. However, on this occasion, there are issues for the local authority, obviously. It has not been able to address this issue. I thank Deputy McGrath again for bringing this to the attention of the Dáil. I will raise it with the Minister when I see him later.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-02-11/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-14T01:01:02+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-02-11