The Minister for housing has declared a "war on dereliction"; fighting talk and a striking turn of phrase. This is the Government's tactic. It is to flood the airwaves with repeated announcements, deflect responsibility and spin its failures to save face. This week, the Tánaiste sought to pin responsibility for vacancy and dereliction on councils alone, a convenient distraction from years of Government failure. Who has been in charge of national housing policy for the past decade? It is the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste.

For years, the Government ignored the growing number of vacant and derelict properties blighting the country. Meanwhile, rents and house prices have spiralled, homelessness continues to rise and people are losing hope. After years of inaction, it seems the best response from the Government will be a thinly-veiled attempt to pass the buck.

What has this so-called war on dereliction delivered? A delayed measure, already announced in last year's budget, the renaming of a 35-year-old levy and a promise that Revenue will now collect it. If it worked, this could be significant but, as with so many of the Government's housing plans, it is a half measure, delayed and diluted, and arbitrarily deployed, initially only to urban areas with populations of 4,000 or more. As if dereliction did not affect small towns and villages when we all know it is a blight on every community. PAYE tax is paid by every employee, so why this selective approach? The Government said it is phasing this in but why this approach and why rule out these small towns and villages which are also blighted by dereliction?

Speculators and land hoarders in every part of the country, not just in larger urban centres, are profiting from the misery caused by the chronic shortage of homes so unless this new tax is set at an effective and meaningful level, speculators will keep sitting on their assets, literally. Derelict buildings on empty streets across the country will remain a visual reminder of the Government's failure to get off the fence and fix housing.

We are all hearing from people who have been directly affected by this. Every day, I hear from people who have received an eviction notice and who can find nowhere else; nowhere to rent and nowhere to buy. Each case and each family situation is heartbreaking. I am supporting one such mother of three, who has had her eviction notice and now feels she has no option but to overhold. She and her young family have literally nowhere to go and in Dublin Bay South, they see vacant houses and derelict sites all around them.

People like that young mother need the Government to act now on dereliction. The Labour Party is calling for the introduction of compulsory sales orders - a new mechanism to force persistently vacant and derelict properties back into use. We are calling on the Government to fund vacancy and dereliction teams in local authorities across the country. The Taoiseach is not a commentator; he has effectively been in government for a decade, so when will he and his Ministers stop blaming everyone else for the vacancy and dereliction crisis? Will the Government introduce the stronger measures needed to bring empty homes back into use and to generate greater housing supply to fix this housing crisis?

Just to say, Fianna Fáil came back into Government in 2020. I was not in government for the past decade. Facts matter. We did not have the executive authority we now have.

We all know the arrangement.

The most significant measure we have taken in terms of dereliction-----

The Labour Party was in government.

-----is the introduction of the grant to refurbish derelict and vacant housing. There is no question about it. I took a personal interest in that because when I walked in rural areas or urban areas I could see dereliction. The Minister at the time, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, introduced it. Some 17,500 applications is no mean change and 13,000 of them have been approved so that has been a significant initiative. So, it is not years of doing nothing. That is a very significant measure the Deputy chooses to ignore. Around €285 million has been paid out by quarter 1 of 2026. That grant scheme has been extended to 2030.

The vacant above the shop grant will do significant work as well. The Government has allocated €150 million through the Urban Regeneration and Development Fund to tackle vacancy and dereliction, and €142 million of that has already been allocated. Again, this charge of inaction, as it nothing is happening, is just not true. There are many more initiatives as well.

The Government launched the CPO activation programme in 2023 to support proactive local authority acquisition of vacant and derelict properties. Approximately, 11,000-plus properties engaged, 400 CPOs commenced and 250-plus were completed. Proposals are also being advanced to centralise certain CPO powers to An Coimisiún Pleanála. The existing unpaid derelict site levy will remain a charge on affected properties and continue to be collected by local authorities.

In terms of the replacement of the derelict site levy with the tax, I think we all have to agree. It seems very clear to me.

Deputy Bacik mentioned 35 years with regard to derelict sites. Does anybody acknowledge there has been some weakness here in local government in terms of implementing the derelict sites levy? No, but Deputy Bacik chooses to blame central government. We need to make up our minds in the Oireachtas. When we delegate and gift powers to local authorities, there comes a time when there has to be accountability from local authorities as well. When we look at the tables in terms of who did what at local authority level, there are differences. Some are far more proactive than others but no one on the Opposition side ever wants to criticise this aspect of it because it has to be the Government's fault for everything. We have a very double-standard approach to regional delegation of power and local authority devolution. The reason we are transferring this to Revenue is because we believe Revenue has a tendency to concentrate the mind a bit more than local authorities have done. That is the bottom line. When people see Revenue coming, behaviour will change but we are going to have to do it in a comprehensive way. We are going to have to do it in a proper, precise way, again illustrating some degree of inaction by local authorities in terms of having ready registers and ready maps of properties-----

The time is up, Taoiseach, and Deputy Bacik will respond now.

I have listened carefully and the Taoiseach's answer is again a textbook response by Government. People like the young mother in my constituency are sick of central government looking to claim ownership for any win but absolutely looking to absolve itself of responsibility for any failure. It is buck-passing to local authorities and it is utterly shameless and meaningless to people who are looking for action. Yes, of course we acknowledge that one third of local authorities collected no derelict sites tax revenue in 2024. Clearly there are issues with the existing model but it is the job of central government to fix it. I have several questions because the Government has no sense of urgency and there is no sense of urgency from it on these new announcements. Why is the Government introducing this new tax on a selective basis? Why, when all employees have to pay PAYE, is this new tax, even once it finally comes in, going to be confined to urban areas with a population of 4,000 or more? Has there been pressure from somewhere? Why is this arbitrary distinction being made? Is it not true that the new tax will not be collected until 2028 at the earliest?

The point I am making is that the reason it is over 4,000 is because that is where the housing need is and it is where there is the greatest degree of dereliction.

Who says?

It is also the first phase of this because this is a mammoth task. Notwithstanding the Derelict Sites Act being there, the database as inherited is not sufficient to immediately introduce a tax when we do not have a comprehensive database on derelict registers the length and breadth of the country. This is a tax that is coming in, so it will have to be done properly and in a very precise and effective way that will make a difference. It is very important that we get it right and do it properly.

We expanded the living city initiative in the last budget and that will help significantly with regeneration in cities as well. The URDF and the rural community development fund are doing an awful lot of work in towns across the country and in cities in terms of bringing back to life city streets. Sometimes people might say Deputy Bacik is textbook Opposition and that everything has to be the Government's fault but the point I make is that a lot of progress has been made in a lot of areas. We need to do more-----

The time is up and we will move to the Independent and Parties Technical Group and Deputy Healy.