Thomas Gould

These are facts. I will send the Minister the details if he wants them.

The Minister of State and the Government are failing people with disabilities. The budget announced last week did nothing for them and actually made them worse off. The report the Government produced in 2021 outlined that it costs people with disabilities more to live because of the extras they need. It costs anything between €10,000 and €12,000 extra. What has the Government done to help them? Th…

3. Deputy Thomas Gould asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage for an update on the number of compulsory purchase orders, CPOs, completed under the CPO activation programme and an update on the long-promised legislation to reform the CPO process as recommended by the Law Reform Commission. [54229/25]

I cannot believe the data is not available. It was supposed to be released in the second quarter of the year and here we are in October 2025 without the data. The Minister said things are going well and progressing but where is the proof? For months, I have submitted a parliamentary question every two or three weeks looking for information on dereliction, such as how many sites are derelict, how m…

I want to make that point.

Will the Minister of State give that commitment today?

Today is World Vacant Homes Day and in a minute members of the Government will be outside having their photograph taken. The hypocrisy of that is unbelievable. Things are so bad that Fine Gael backbenchers introduced Private Members' legislation in July to try to force the Minister's hand on the matter of CPOs being used. Some Government backbenchers do not believe or have faith in the Ministers. …

They are not working.

In three years' time. There will not be-----

When will it be delivered?

Will the Minister of State walk with me?

I will organise that.

Perhaps Deputy Hearne will come with us.

Is the Minister of State going to vote against it?

The Minister of State sold his soul for a Ministry.

You sold it to the devil.

We are telling the truth.

People cannot turn on their electricity because of the cost of it.

We will be downloading the videos from last year and putting them up on YouTube after.

Yesterday, the Government finally listened to me, to Sinn Féin and to all those who had campaigned so that the derelict sites levy would be collected by Revenue. I compliment Dr. Frank O'Connor and Ms Jude Sherry for the Trojan work they and others have done to highlight the scourge of dereliction. The Government finally brought in this levy for Revenue to collect to ensure that it was collected. …

They do not want to.

I will follow up on a point made by the Deputy. I have spoken to the representatives of some colleges and they have told me that they have the capacity to deliver more therapists and all the professionals we need. They are saying that if they get the funding and resources, they can meet the challenges. I know UCC is rolling out additional courses. There should be more courses to allow universities…

Like the Minister, I have attended meetings and met women who have described how they have suffered. Their lives have been hugely impacted. Endometriosis has completely changed their quality of life. It has just been horrendous for them. It is good to hear that the Minister is listening to the patient and it is good to see that a framework has been put in place. I accept her sincerity in this but …

Right across cities, towns and villages, there are empty, vacant, and derelict houses and buildings lying idle. They are being left to rot. These are properties and homes where people should be able to live, work and raise families, but instead they are left derelict and vacant. GeoDirectory has found record levels of commercial vacancy. It has also found that only 2,377 homes have been charged wi…

I accept that town centre first is a good model. The problem is that only 26 town centres were done in the first three years, between 2021 and 2024, and another 26 have been passed for 2024 and the next three years, as I learned from the answer I got to a parliamentary question. The town centre first policy is a good policy, but it will take 90 years to implement because there are over 800 towns i…