The purpose of the amendment is to try to exclude vacant homes and holiday homes from receiving the rebate. The most recent census identified 61,204 holiday homes in the State with a further 166,752 vacant holiday homes, all of which are due to receive €600 under this scheme. Given that the census revealed 228,000 vacant homes and holiday homes, it seems that energy usage is quite an accurate measure of whether a home is being used.
I do not accept that there is no way the Minister of State could exclude vacant homes and holiday homes from this credit. The argument given by the Government was that there was a low-use rate being charged to holiday homes and vacant homes. We have incorporated a dispute resolution mechanism into the amendment, which will enable people to go to the RTB if there is a dispute between landlord and tenant.
Key terms by TF-IDF across 2,349 words from 7 speakers. The summary quotes the highest-scoring sentences verbatim — nothing is paraphrased.
Tellers: Tá, Senators Marie Sherlock and Mark Wall; Níl, Senators Seán Kyne and Robbie Gallagher.
| Question | Result | Tá–Níl |
|---|---|---|
| Amendment put: | Lost | 9–13 |
Party shown is the one each member held on 2022-10-13, frozen by a dated join — not their party today. The Oireachtas API publishes no date of birth and returns an empty gender field for every member in this period, so no age or gender breakdown is shown.