Vacant Properties
Dail Éireann — 2026-05-19
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Thomas Gould (SF), Cork North-Central

The Minister talked to colleagues earlier about policy. I launched a policy to return vacant, boarded-up homes to use in housing families. This is the low-hanging fruit and I still cannot understand why the Minister, his Department and the other Ministers in the Government do not tackle it. The voids programme for 2026 will allow for the return of 2,200 homes, with local authorities receiving only €11,000 per unit when there are more than 4,500 houses boarded up and vacant. Why is the Minister not being more ambitious? This is a fundamental disagreement. He will not fund local authorities to return those homes to use. This could be a success story. We could house 4,500 families if he were willing to put up the money.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-05-19/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-28T05:50:46+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-05-19