This is not a plan to tackle inflation. It’s compensation for inflation in April, but the cost of living will continue to rise before and after then. We urgently need targeted measures by Government to tackle rising energy & housing costs, the main drivers of inflation in Ireland.
At today’s Joint Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage, I questioned whether the underuse of the Derelict Sites Act by local authorities was due to legislative deficiencies in the Act or other reasons.
The number of local authority inspections of private rented properties in 2020 was particularly inadequate. While Covid is cited as the reason, the figures for 2019 are not much better.
Clare Independent TD Michael McNamara has called on Government to extend the Local Property Tax exemption and the Defective Concrete Block Grant Scheme for affected properties in Donegal and Mayo to properties impacted by pyrite in County Clare.
Deputy McNamara’s comments follow this week’s confirmation by Clare County Council’s to Clare’s Oireachtas Members that the local authority has issued a detailed submission to the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage to justify the extension of the Defective Concrete Block Grant Scheme to Clare.
Clare County Council says the submission contains test results from 5 private properties confirming the presence of pyrite, a map indicating the location of both confirmed and potential cases and a request to review elements of the current scheme, including the limit of remediation costs at 90% plus other unfunded costs such as alternative accommodation, demolition and planning. The local authority has requested the extension of the Local Property Tax exemption for affected properties, recently introduced in Mayo and Donegal, to be extended to Clare.
Speaking to Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe on the issue of extending the Local Property Tax to Clare homes impacted by pyrite, Deputy McNamara said, “It will provide a little help to the families in Clare that unexpectedly have homes that are not worth anything like what they spent on them. They face years of heartache trying to resolve this matter without having to spend money on engineers to show them what they already know in order to avail of the local property tax exemption. I urge the Minister to give serious consideration to the amendment.”
Deputy McNamara has expressed his hope that the Clare County Council submission to Government will result in a fully-funded Defective Concrete Blocks Grant Scheme being extended to Clare.
“If the Government saw fit to fund a scheme like this in respect of Mayo and Donegal, I see no reason whatsoever why Clare constituents and any other householders in the country who suffer from the same problem should not be treated in exactly the same way by the Government. It is a matter of basic equality. It is critical however, that any future scheme be 100% fully funded,” he said.