We clearly don't know the numbers here.
90,000, 137,000, 180,000.
But tens of thousands, it appears.
Why do we have so many (derelict properties) in this country?
Um well, I think there's a whole load of issues going
on, So I toured yesterday, went to Templemore.
I went to thoroughness casual and gone well, and all of these towns, in their city centres
and in their centres have vacant properties over shops or derelict shops.
And that has to do with a whole load of economical circumstances
to date, but we need to address this issue because there's a huge
resource, particularly when we talk about sustainability.
Unfortunately, I've had a look at today's report and it doesn't go far enough.
And in fact, it's not going to assist people who own buildings because
of the cost of renovation, because the condition of these properties,
as we said, we're not quite sure how many of these are turnkey.
We presume very few of them.
And there are a lot of them beyond saving what
they need to be demolished and rebuilt.
No, not at all, particularly if you go, I'll take Temple more.
Sorry to Temple more, but I just thought it was such a treat of a town and deserves
better but so many of the properties on the first floor of vacant.
But all those properties need to be rewired, re plumbed, brought up to part
out in terms of energy of the building regulations put in fire.
Certs, you know, make them fire compliant.
And but the time you've done all that the actual funds that are available
in terms of grant are wholly inadequate to do up these properties.
And yet Stephen Matthews, Minister Dara O'Brien, the
Minister for Housing, confirmed yesterday.
I think I'm speaking to Newstalk that there's a vacant property
tax will be introduced in the next budget for two problems, one
of which is we have no idea the scale to start with.
And second of all, it's just too expensive for a lot of
people to put these properties back on the market.
Yeah, let's address those two concerns then.
So it's all about gathering the data.
And that's one of the primary recommendations in the report with a whole lot
of data sets out there with a whole lot of organisations collecting data.
We have data returns from the
LPT returns that are going to be doing.
We've recently had a census, so we'd expect the returns
back in from that with the old census data.
We have, uh, websites such as vacant homes dot ie, where
members of the public and report vacant properties.
We've work being done with the Heritage Council in the town centre.
Health checks.
So have all these different data sets out there,
and it's important to pull it all together.
We recommend a dedicated unit within the department of housing and local government
and heritage to concentrate solely on vacancy and dereliction.
So we put all that data together, and we've got that good data set.
If you can't measure something, you can't manage it.
And that's key here.
What are the figures are 137,000 or 90,000 if we look at a comparable
vacant homes tax like it was introduced in Vancouver, in Canada,
if freedom about 26% of that vacant property.
So even if we would take the lowest figure of 90,000 and be very conservative
on our figures on it and we were to free up 25% that's similar to Vancouver,
that's still a substantial amount of property.
We will bring on stream, providing homes and housing for people much needed.
The costs you referred happened to the 75% then that weren't made available.
I don't know what happened to that, but I mean, if we could bring
in 25% of them, I think that would be king instead of leaving.
But they just taxed.
The 75% is left tax, I presume if you're wealthy enough
to pay a tax and keep your home vacant.
Your home remains vacant, so I don't think it's
about having enough money to pay the tax.
The actual issue is I don't have enough money to refurbish
the property, but you're going to tax me.
So I don't think that's correct, Steven.
I think we have to have a balanced approach here.
Quite a reason.
A reasonable approach.
But today, if you re wire house 25,000 to put in plumbing is 25,000.
I have to insulate the house.
I have to fix the roof, put in new windows, and there's my bill of 150,000 of
which I have the luxury to pay the government 13.5% in that which I think is
as you do with building anyhow, coming in there should be no that.
I think there should be no VAT for first time buyers or for people doing construction
to actually develop owns the cost involved in bringing and refurbishing properties
back can be prohibitive for people who want to develop those.
2nd and 3rd stories were very onerous and difficult regulatory process.
There's about three or four certificates you have to go through fire.
Certain accessibility.
Sarah.
We brought in planning exemptions on it as well.
But you've also then got to have a self certification.
So it is quite expensive when you're looking at those smaller ones.
Okay, so let's just look at the tax for a second, Okay?
Before we talk about how people might be able to avoid that tax, which
is obviously bringing the property back onto the market, Rebecca, the
Labour Party has been in favour of this tax for some time.
Put a figure on it.
Well, what they did in Vancouver, they started at 1%.
Then they went up to 3%.
And I think next year is going to 5% which is?
Stephen says it brought about 25% of properties back into use.
Sometimes people have properties or have land that are there in line vacant.
They can't afford to do them up.
But in that case, you should be able to put them on the market to sell them
for somebody else who can do it and bring it back into use as a whole.
As a home, there is no excuse for vacancy and dereliction in our
towns and cities and you advocating then 1% this year, 3% next year,
5% a year after he didn't put a specific figure on it.
What I'm saying is, you know, from from that very important from
other examples, um, of other countries that have done this, what
they had is they had a rolling tax, so they had 1%.
They had 3%.
And then they go up to five with the vacant sites levy and with
the proposed owned land tax, that's going to be the same.
It's going to be, um, going upwards as years go on.
But I think it's important to say dereliction is both
about homes and bring homes back into use.
But it's also about our towns and cities, and what we're seeing is dereliction,
sucking the life out of our towns and cities and areas like, for example,
the northwest of the country is particularly affected by dereliction,
but it's also particularly affected by lack of rental properties that
are there and in the middle of a housing crisis.
There is no excuse for loop for leaving residential properties.
That could be no excuse whatsoever.
So are you saying no exemptions to this?
No, of course there will be exemptions.
But if you can bring something back into use, it should be
brought back into you just outside those exemptions.
Because there will be people watching this evening who have a property, perhaps
have an elderly relative who is in, you know, nursing care or have a property
that they're hoping to be able to renovate in a couple of years.
And perhaps users or pensions.
Are they the properties that should be exempted?
The report is clear in that for exemptions for where, for example, these issues
of probate or where there's issues of people who are in fair deal.
This is where properties are left vacant for a very, very long
time, and nobody is bringing them back into just somebody.
Somebody owns them.
They could be used as a home for somebody else, but they are there and
they're left vacant, and we see them around this country all over.
Okay, but again, we have no idea why those properties are being left vacant.
And is there any sort of plan within the plan that was published
today to find out why people have left these houses.
That was one of the key recommendations.
Again, it's about the data gathering as well to know, to to have a score condition
on buildings out there as well, with a derelict sites register as well.
We need to bring that information but vacancy as well.
The condition of that.
Is it habitable?
Does it need small amounts of work?
Is it absolutely derelict and uninhabitable?
But the reasonable exemptions?
And I'm glad you brought that up because there
has to be reasonable exemptions on this.
So if it's a holiday home, I would say that's a reasonable exemption.
If it's somebody in care, I would say that's a reasonable exemption.
If it's your primary residence and you're working abroad for
large periods of the year, that's a reasonable exemption.
So I think we need to tease those out.
But again, it's not, You know, if you take this
figure 137,000 so you won't get them all.
Throw out that idea.
That's ridiculous.
Just we have a house even that we already have a vacant state levy in
this country that was introduced in 23 failure, a complete failure
so full of loopholes, so full of opportunities to appeal it.
At every stage there's €21 million in vacant site levees.
There's only about 1% of it has been collected.
So we replaced.
Why doesn't Why doesn't the government suggest that we look at that?
First?
We levy also applies to sites.
Where is what we're talking about?
Is a vacant property tax, a vacant property tax?
And if this is to bring some homes back into you, so they're they're two
separate things with local authorities about the same principle.
It is the same principle.
You're putting a tax or a levy on something that is vacant.
Whatever.
We just crying is vacant, and I'm saying that the vacant levy has not worked.
I believe this derelict sites Levy hasn't worked vacant sites.
Levy hasn't worked, hasn't been applied properly, hasn't been collected.
21 million in vacant site levees, 1% collected 5.5.
What does that?
5.5 million in derelict sites levy and 378,000 collected by the local authorities.
We would propose to change those two taxes and have revenue deal with it So the local
authorities and others gathering the data and have revenue applied that taxation.
That, to me makes more reasonable.
Let's talk about the sort of the carrot and the stick here
because we clearly have the stick, which is the tax.
What's the carrots that needs to be?
There is.
We need to have the living city and initiative was rolled out in 2015, which
is a brilliant scheme where if you worked on your house, you had a rebate
of all the money you spent over a 10 year period, and that should be initiated
throughout the country in every town and village.
But that, in fact, failed.
And in Cork over the past seven years, there's been 42 properties
that's all have been completed under the scheme.
And that's because of bureaucracy paperwork trying to shove
building control legislation and regulations for new built
into old property, which is more than 200 years old.
And I think when you talk about was a Toronto Vancouver, so you have to look
at Vancouver and you have to look at the age of the properties in Vancouver
and the age of the properties in Ireland and in Ireland there substantially
older and therefore require more funds to renovate them.
Okay, killings?
Was there any discussion today about those funds about those grants that might be made
available to people to, you know, get their properties into a state where they might
be able to use them or rent to them or bring them back onto the market?
Yeah, I think that's what the report recommends as well was getting
to a stage where you can better awareness for what is out there, You
know, you recommend Living cities initiative be expanded.
There's also repairing the scheme, which people can go to
their local authorities and say, I have this property.
I'm willing to lease it back to the council if if there is money there
to repair it and then they would retain ownership of it actually
turned into an asset that is producing money for them.
And so there was.
There was limited talk today about what, and in the
report about what could be done for the owners.
I think that we're seeing probably to a stage where
it's their report acknowledges its we.
There's certain things that have to be given to help people
incentivise get get these homes back into use.
But the vacancy and dereliction issue has gone so far out of
control in Ireland, like some of these properties are vacant
15, 20 years, some in the city centre of Dublin.
You know, I think there's not.
There is recognition that it's unacceptable.
Some of the property owners, regardless of the problems they've
had, have fallen to this issue because there is no problem with
selling property in the city centre at the moment.
So anyone who has no money to do over property should have no problem selling it.
And that is the numbers.
Absolutely not.
You have to have the money to people to do up that that's where, and I think that's
the lack of sympathy will probably come from four property owners at the moment is
that there's just no excuse for not selling and flipping selling on site.
If you cannot do something with it, do you think, Do you agree with Kellyanne there?
Look, there's no excuse for having a property.
If you can't afford to do it up, you should be made to sell it.
Do you agree with that principle It's not in public interest to
have a building vacant and empty during the housing crisis.
We need to bring every bit of stock back in to use.
We need to encourage people we need to incentivise them or we
need to use the stick, which would be the tax as well.
And so it's just very quickly.
We talked about the apparently seen there.
It's up to 60,000, I think is available in 60,000.
We recommend increasing that in line with inflationary costs as
well in the report and did you put any upper limit on that?
We didn't because these are all recommendations
for the department and others to consider.
So we brought in expertise this as we looked at,
we didn't put exact figures on it as well.
The creek on a town village fund as well.
That's going to be bringing in a grant system for people who
wish to purchase an older property and do it up as well.
I don't have the exact figures on that, but you know there's a number of
measures need to be taken here, but we definitely need to address the
amount of dereliction of vacancy and during the housing crisis.