It is not a question of ability; it is a question of duty. Under section 58 of the Housing Act 1966, it is the duty of the local authorities to keep those properties maintained.

The previous Government gave significant money. There should not be any home in long-term disuse. Significant money was given by the previous Government for every home that was empty long term to be brought up to standard. How is it then, only a few years later, that there are more properties no longer up to standard and, in fact, in very poor condition? That should not be the case.

The figure of €11,000 is only an average. Each home should not take €11,000 to fix. The duty is on local authorities to maintain their stock. The Government is stepping in to help and support them but it should not really have to do so. The local authorities should be able to look after their own stock, as is their duty. The key point is that a lot of local authorities, if not almost every one of them, are not putting 100% of their rental income into maintaining their properties.

People in social housing homes are paying rent. They have a right to have that money put back into maintaining the properties, but the local authorities are not doing that, which they should be.

Those renters need to know their money is going where it should be going.

Government approval was received on 18 September 2024 for the priority drafting of the apartment and duplex defects remediation Bill. The purpose of the legislation is to place the defects remediation scheme on a statutory footing, further to commitments contained in the programme for Government. The Bill will provide supports for the remediation of relevant fire safety, structural safety and water ingress defects in purpose-built apartment buildings, including duplexes, constructed between 1991 and 2013. It is env…

In terms of the timeline, all I can say is we will move this as quickly as possible. I wanted to get those interim schemes in place, and in particular the supports around fire safety. I also brought a memorandum to Government on 21 April 2026 on retrospection. Approval was received on a number of policy recommendations around retrospective grant payments. These recommendations will inform the ongoing drafting of the legislation. I can confirm works have been completed at 50 eligible perimeters of the scheme and the…

The aim here is that people will not be out of pocket. There will not be caps. We are trying to do it in such a way that we can move as quickly as possible. There are some challenges around tender limits and how we can address that in a way that allows people to move far more quickly, but there are no overall caps on it. In terms of any submissions on what the costs will be, the Department will look at that to ensure it meets what needs to be done to help these people. The Deputy is correct; if we publish the Bill …

I thank Deputy Heneghan for what is clearly an important question on an issue he has raised on a number of occasions, namely, protections for renters. The Residential Tenancies (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2026 came into effect on 1 March 2026, introducing a new national rent control for all tenancies, which limits rent increases to inflation as measured by the consumer price index, CPI, up to a maximum of 2%. For new-build apartments and student-specific accommodation, however, rent increases are capped at the l…

The over the shop grant is just one of many to help tackle vacancy and dereliction and create additional homes in the centres in our towns and cities and within the hearts of communities. It is win-win. All the facilities are there - water, wastewater, electricity, footpaths and streets. It helps to revitalise the community and acts as an antisocial behaviour measure as well for people to be living in town and city centres and in communities within cities as well. We are giving significant grants but, of course, we…

I welcome Deputy Heneghan's genuine interest in housing solutions. There is no one fix for solving our housing crisis. Supports for people to reuse existing properties to be able to get the homes they need in their local communities are important, and this is something the Deputy is passionate about as well. We will continue to engage right across the House. I will always listen to any proposals to see where we can make changes and continue to evolve our policies.

I thank the Deputy. Unlike connections in the delivery of new housing, reconnections are not a measure of tackling vacancy and dereliction, as many vacant properties never lost their connections. The vacant property refurbishment grant, funded under the croí cónaithe towns fund, has been a key measure in addressing vacancy and dereliction. At the end of the first quarter of 2026, more than 17,400 applications had been made to local authorities, with more than 13,100 of those applications approved and more than 5,30…

It is not a measure.

I did not question the facts.

The Deputy seems to be under a basic misapprehension about how the grant works. A property does not have to be disconnected from electricity to get the grant. Therefore, the CSO statistics might be correct, but they do not reflect the argument or opinion the Deputy is putting forward. The conclusion he is drawing from them is incorrect. No one is disputing CSO statistics, but the Deputy's conclusion is incorrect because the connections do not reflect how many vacant properties have been refurbished. The facts are t…

-----and successful scheme and the above the shop grant is now adding to it.

As the Deputy will know and understand, in relation to the number of vacant properties, properties become vacant and not vacant. They are not all the same properties.

We have significant schemes to tackle vacancy and dereliction. They are being availed of by the public. They are bringing a significant number of properties back into use. I want to see them used even more and see even more properties being brought back into use to tackle vacancy and dereliction, and that is what we will continue to do.

The new housing plan, Delivering Homes, Building Communities 2025-2030, reinforces and expands the range of existing affordable housing measures being implemented by the Government. In particular, the plan provides for an unprecedented level of State funding in order to deliver an average of 15,000 starter home supports annually between now and 2030. Last year represented a record year in terms of delivery of affordable homes. Through the various affordable supports now available under the Government's new housing …

It is an important and indeed an interesting question, and depending on what approach had been taken it would affect prices. With an all-in cost approach we would have had very significant variation in prices depending on input costs. That could lead to dramatically different prices even for apartments in developments side by side. In my view the open market value approach is the correct one as it provides a consistency of fairness. We would have to go through each scheme to find out which side of the costs it woul…