A new report from Ireland’s Housing Agency has revealed that there are almost a quarter of a million properties lying vacant across the country.
Chairman of the agency Conor Skehan spoke to RTÉ’s Morning Ireland this morning, and said that this number of roughly 250,000 houses translates to a two-year supply of housing for the market.
Skehan went on to say that government must take steps to encourage the owners of these vacant properties to ‘open up’ – such as short term tax breaks.
According to Focus Ireland, the most recent homeless figures (recorded in 2011) suggest that there are 3808 people accommodation providing shelter for homeless persons or were sleeping rough – which means there are roughly more than 800 as many vacant properties as there are homeless people in Ireland.
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