With the updated homeless figures to be released tomorrow, I raise the issue of vacancy. It is a national disgrace that we have such a scourge of vacancy and dereliction across the country when nearly 13,000 people are homeless. I raised the issue with the Taoiseach yesterday. I pointed out the enormous shortfall between the number of properties recorded as vacant in the census and the paltry figure of 3,000 homes that will be subject to the new vacant homes tax. The Taoiseach came back and criticised me, and said that those who mention census figures for vacancy and dereliction were wrong and the figures were not accurate. I raised the disparity simply to illustrate the issue that the Government is not aware of the scale of the problem. We do not know how many properties across the country are vacant or derelict. We know that Revenue says there are 57,000 such properties, according to local property tax figures. We know that nearly 50,000 homes stayed empty between the two previous censuses. We certainly know there are many, many more than 3,000 vacant homes lying idle and which could be used for those who so desperately need homes.

I ask the Government to commit to establishing a national register on vacancy and dereliction to ensure we have some idea of the scale of the issue and then consider how we can address it as a matter of urgency.

The way to deal with issues of vacancy and dereliction is through action. The most effective action has been the grants programme for vacant or derelict houses, which provides grants of €50,000 and €70,000. There is considerable interest in those grants. That, to me, is action and substance in terms of the issue of dereliction. We will work with local authorities to ensure we can improve on the inner city or urban renewal projects to bring more residential accommodation to our towns and cities. That will happen not only through the grant schemes the Minister has announced but also through other measures, working with the Department of Community and Rural Affairs, and the urban development grants announced by the Minister for housing to get real impact on dereliction and vacancy.