Thomas Gould

In 2013, the current Taoiseach, Deputy Micheál Martin, described the triple lock as being at the core of our neutrality. At the time, there were protests in Kyiv, and the following year the annexation of Crimea took place. There was a war in Afghanistan and there was a civil war in Syria, with the Russians and the Americans involved in it. Now he is saying times have drastically changed but that …

When NAMA came into being, the State was in a really dark place. The economy had collapsed, there were no jobs and people were really struggling. We had ghost estates and sites that were half developed. Fianna Fáil destroyed the economy. I remember it as clear as day. I remember friends of mine losing their jobs. To add insult to injury, when Fine Gael came into government in 2011, all it gave a d…

We have all heard in recent weeks about the scandal on Connaught Street in Dublin. Dublin City Council has finally agreed to meet with the residents today but this is not the only such site in the heart of Dublin city centre. No. 6 Terrace Place sits at the end of a row of beautifully maintained homes off Seán McDermott Street. It was added to the derelict sites register in 2008 and was subject to…

The Government amendment to the motion is an insult to the more than 7,000 families who received notices to quit in the first three months of the year and the thousands of families who received such notices at the end of last year. Those people are facing eviction and do not know where they will be in four, five, six, seven or eight months' time. They are asking where they are going to live and wh…

141. Deputy Thomas Gould asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage to provide an update on the voids programme review committed to in the Government's housing plan. [37768/26]

On page 76 of the Government's housing plan, there is a commitment to develop a new voids funding programme that would "incentivise lower vacancy rates and faster turnaround times for vacant local authority stock". The plan was launched 187 days ago on 13 November 2025. In that time, only one action has been taken on the voids scheme.

The Minister talked to colleagues earlier about policy. I launched a policy to return vacant, boarded-up homes to use in housing families. This is the low-hanging fruit and I still cannot understand why the Minister, his Department and the other Ministers in the Government do not tackle it. The voids programme for 2026 will allow for the return of 2,200 homes, with local authorities receiving only…

The Minister mentioned the NOAC report. I will refer to some of the figures in that report. In 2024, there were 4,251 empty council houses, which was an increase from the previous year. One in four of those homes was empty longer than a year. I know of houses in my constituency that have been empty and boarded up for years. The problem is a lot of local authorities do not have the excess funding t…

They do not have the money to do it.

Some of them are up to 100 years old.

They cannot do so.

They cannot do it because the Government cut their funding.

145. Deputy Thomas Gould asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage the progress being made in addressing vacancy and dereliction following reports of the lowest number of quarter 1 electricity reconnections since Central Statistics Office, CSO, data began. [37512/26]

The first quarter of this year saw the lowest number of first quarter reconnections and it was the second lowest number for any quarter since the CSO began collecting data in 2011.

I find it astounding and unbelievable that the Minister would say this is not a measure.

This is a CSO figure that shows the lowest number for any first quarter in 15 years. That is a measurement. Regardless of whether the Minister agrees with it or wants to accept it is his issue, but these are the facts. I printed them off.

We have the lowest number for any first quarter and the Minister says it is not a measure. The Minister can disagree with me, but he should not say these figures are not right because they are right. The Government is not delivering. This proves the Government is not delivering on dereliction because the vast majority of these derelict sites are not connected to an electrical supply, so if there w…

-----that shows that the Government's policy on dereliction has failed. These are the facts. I am not making them up.

I am sure the Minister can recognise that these figures are accurate.

It is unbelievable that the Minister would say my conclusions are wrong. I am using CSO figures. The Minister does not have any figures to contradict mine, so I am right. They prove the Government's policy on dereliction is failing. I will give another figure to prove how the Government is failing. Some 2,361 homes were self-assessed as liable for the vacant homes tax in 2025. According to CSO fi…

-----it would help to solve the housing crisis. The Minister said he was looking at staged payments. Where are the staged payments? People want to turn these vacant homes around.

They do not have the money and they do not have the support from the Minister.

Some of them have been vacant for 20 years.

Is the vacant homes tax working?

I wish I was here to welcome this with a sense of hope but this is not a strategy. It is a shortlist of options. People are dying on our roads. We are one of the only states in Europe that is going backwards in relation to road safety. In 2025, 21 people tragically died on the roads of Cork. In 2024, 18 died and seven died in 2021. These are horrific figures. Each of these people left behind a dis…