"Government Must Stop Dragging Their Heels And Introduce A Vacant Homes Tax"

Wednesday, 25 May 2022 14:20

By Caoimhe Harney

The Cllr. for Kildare-Newbridge says the government needs to take immediate action.

Rather than promoting the swift implementation of a vacant homes tax, the government appears to be more interested in undermining the case for one, according to Cllr Chris Pender of the Social Democrats

The Councillor for the Kildare Newbridge MD says the government must stop dragging their heels and implement a vacant homes tax right away.

"The government said it wants to collect data from the Local Property Tax (LPT) returns before introducing a vacant homes tax. This has predictably resulted in an unnecessarily long delay.

"It is evident that the LPT reports do not provide a complete data set for gauging vacancy - with filings outstanding for around 216,900 properties, or 10% of the housing supply.

"As a result, the data used by the government is far less complete than data from the CSO and Geo-Directory. This is undeniable, " he insisted.

"We rely on the CSO to provide statistics via the census to ascertain the overall number of Dáil seats for calculating the size of the Dáil.

"So why, if the government is willing to use CSO data to calculate its own numbers, is it so reluctant to utilize CSO data to justify the implementation of a vacant homes tax?

"Rather than promoting the swift implementation of a vacant homes tax, the government appears to be more concerned with undermining the argument for one.

"As a result, even though the government's own "Housing For All" policy promised to implement a vacant homes tax in the second quarter of this year, nothing has happened,

"With all the things we've seen about vacancy and homelessness in the media, enough is enough.

"The government must immediately take action and enact a vacant properties tax to reclaim much-needed housing," concluded Cllr Pender.