This afternoon.
Leinster House.
Fine Gael Deputy Emer Higgins and Senator John Cummins hold a media conference on the plinth about restoring vacant homes and buildings for residential use through new and existing policy measures ahead of a Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing.
Meanwhile…
Social Democrats Housing Spokesperson Cian O’Callaghan said:
“The Government is failing to tackle the issue of vacancy. We have thousands of people who are homeless and thousands of houses that are empty. In some areas over 11pc of properties are vacant – that is after you exclude houses that are vacant for a known reason. This has to change. We have to turn these houses into homes.”
“A report commissioned from GeoDirectory shows that vacancy rates are as high as 11.5pc in some of our towns. In total, 19 Local Electoral Areas were examined in detail and vacancy rates ranged from 0.2pc in Clontarf to more than 11pc in Kanturk and Bantry. Another survey by local authorities showed that vacancy rates are 5.2pc in Mayo, 4.4pc in Waterford and 4.2pc in Limerick. These levels are far too high.
“There are clear solutions to addressing vacancy. The Government should immediately introduce a tax on vacant houses and stop stalling with vague promises of action at some future stage.”
Meanwhile…
Classic Emer Higgins.
Says explicitly that their vacant property levy has failed, then immediately after says she doesn’t accept the premise of a question that points out their strategy has been failing for years. pic.twitter.com/wVk8X6fsrj
— Aidan Fitzmaurice (@FancyVegasPro) December 14, 2021
Um
Great range of personal emojis there Emer. Fair play!
LOL…Was thinking that..Oooh!….Eeehh!….Mmmh!
…pic #2
A scene from the new wallace & gromit.
Lets move the homeless to Kanturk and Bantry.
Problem solved.
25 thousand ‘vacant’ houses/apartments in Dublin City alone. Probably better to start there. Would serve the homeless, renters, people looking to buy…. Ah I know you’re just ‘doing a Cian’ ;)
Sure why stop there.. there’s plenty of empty islands just waiting to be repopulated by peasants…
Only 11 years in government… no rush…
The somber and longing look of “if only there was something we could do”…….
Oh there is indeed something you can do; don’t give ESB or any other energy provider €210m under the guise of a household credit when this money could be used to provide homes for the homeless, who will not get this so called €100 electricity credit.
Whole thing is a nonsense. To be effective it needs to effectively target large scale offenders, not a normal punter.
Most empty houses owned by ordinary people are not vacant. Unoccupied, maybe, but not vacant. And anyway, they will bring it in next year and the tax will apply to properties deemed vacant for 12 months. SO 2 years before we need to worry about it. A married couple who own an empty house will just have to move one of them into it a month or so before tax return time and then state it’s not vacant because they’re estranged. Move the painters in – claim refurbishment etc etc. Any number of solutions to get you past tax day and then the clock resets for another year.
And anyway, if someone wants to avoid the massive pain that renting a property can be for an individual, having to pay out €2000 a year in property tax rather than €500 is a price most would easily be willing to pay
Was she not in the Big bang theory.
It’s been bugging me all afternoon until it finally came to me.
Amy Farrah Fowler.
Yeah, I thought so too.