Éamon Ó Cuív Backs Vacant Homes Scheme, Seeks Extension Clarity

I think this scheme is a great idea and you know I'm a big supporter of it. I think the number of applications is satisfactory and it's going to bring a lot of houses back to life. I noticed that it seems to be much more successful in rural areas and I think that that highlights an ongoing difficulty in terms of the physical difficulties of doing up terraced houses. My question relates to the fact that you say there's 930 paid out, that's something in around 9-10% and that looks low. And what I was wondering is this, you also said that there's an extension possible of a number of months on the 13th. I have people coming in now who are hitting the wall, who are getting the work done but haven't got it completed. Can they get second extensions and so on? Is that an absolute discretion of the local authority or is there a limit to the time they're given? If they were doing nothing I'd say well fair enough. But if there is progress being made I think it's a pity not to let them finish. And the final part of my question. Thank you. Was there any discussions with the credit unions about providing bridging finance? The locatory home loan is an interesting idea. Deputy, thank you. But I think credit unions should have been much more proactive in this. Thank you, Minister. Thank you. I might just give some figures first which might be helpful to the deputies. If I take Cork City, 318 applications received 241 approved, only 9 rejected. So the others are being processed. So there's applications coming in. So we've 28 grants paid out in Cork City in total. I'm going to see that accelerate substantially over the next few months, by the way. We're budgeting for about $94 million to be paid out in the grant this year. Because we see where the 13-month period is to answer Deputy O'Kweave. Take Cork County, 860 applications received, 617 approved, and 54 paid out for Hjokta O'Kweave. 454 in Galway received, 281 approved, only 22 rejected, Deputy. Yeah, that's the county. The city is behind, and we have engaged with them. 79 received, 58 approved. But I know Deputy Smith, I can provide these details to deputies across local authorities to answer the question. Extensions can be granted, and where it's a genuine case, in the discretion to the local authorities. I haven't had any come back to me, Deputy O'Kweave, where a local authority said we're not extending it, if it's a reasonable one. We're not telling them not to. Thank you, Deputy O'Sullivan. Minister, can you confirm, I'm always worried when people talk about reviews of schemes that are working. That some, they get an idea of Russian blood that I had to suspend if they're looking to review and implement it, and I think this scheme is successful. Well, why break something that's working very, very, very successfully? And if you said about 10,000-plus applications, along there's going to be some not rejected, if we say 9,000 houses got done and paid out, that's a huge increase in the housing stock in situ, where there are already buildings. And I think that is a major progress. Could you tell us, if the rate of refurbishment is, say, 5,000 a year, what percentage of new available houses does that represent on the market? I think that's irrelevant, it's significant, but how significant is it as an addition to the stock of available houses for people to rent long-term? And the great thing about this is, you can only get this if you live in it, or it's rented long-term. Thank you, Deputy. Deputy O'Sullivan. And Minister Dillon will answer 72, it's not in this group. It just jumped on a little bit, Deputy O'Sullivan. Thank you. Just to say, in relation to bridging finance, I think the local authority home loan and that loan through the local authorities is useful. I've met the three main banks, I meet them regularly, but I've met Permanent TSB, AIB, and Bank of Ireland in relation to this, and I think from, if you look from the retail banks with their push towards green mortgages as well, I think this would be an ideal mortgage to lend on and to provide that bridging finance, and the meetings I had with them were positive. I haven't met the credit unions myself, I know there's been engagement with them on this, and I know some credit unions are actually lending on the basis of the cert being issued, so if you get your grant cert issued, that they're lending on the back of it. But I think there's a real opportunity for financial institutions to do something here for their communities and for prospective homeowners. In relation to percentage of properties, if you were to take this, let's say, you know, this year we're to deliver 40,000 homes, we are tracking the vacant homes coming back in. So I'm tracking actually the vacant homes coming through the Creek Honoha grants in our affordable housing listings once the work is actually concluded. But we can scale this up even further. I want to assure deputies that the review was sought by ourselves, the three ministers, not to stop this. I want to see this evolve, accelerate, and indeed improve into the future, because I think this should be a mainstay for us from a climate perspective, from a regeneration perspective, both urban and rural. And I do expect that we will come forward very shortly with some changes for Above The Shop. Thank you, Minister. I've been very flexible.