THE MINISTER FOR Finance Micheal McGrath has said there is a “level of exaggeration” when it comes to vacancy in Ireland but added that he believes the take up of the vacant homes tax will increase.

Last week, figures released from the Department of Finance showed that just 3,000 of 50,000 identified properties were liable for the vacant property tax.

Speaking to reporters in Dublin today, the Minister said he expects the number of properties liable for the tax to increase as this was the first year of the tax.

The tax is a self-assessment form of tax introduced in 2022 to bring more inhabitable homes back into use in light of the housing crisis. 

The Minister said today that the figures released last week, collected by Revenue, represent the first time we have “hard data” on vacancy.

“I would expect that the number will continue to rise because it is the first year that we have the tax being implemented and the Revenue did use sophisticated methods to target in correspondence the people that they felt may be in scope, but they may have missed some.

“So I would expect that over time. We will have further returns being made.

“But it does point to a level of exaggeration in the conclusions to be reached about the amount of vacancy that is there. We have lots of different issues being conflated,” he said. 

Exaggeration

The Minister added that last week’s figures point to “a level of exaggeration in the conclusions to be reached about the amount of vacancy that is there.”

We have lots of different issues being conflated. There is a significant amount of dereliction and those properties are not in scope for the vacant homes tax.

“They’re being dealt with by Minister O’Brien’s Department [of Housing].

“When it comes to vacancy, there are a considerable number of exemptions as well – where a property is being sold, for example, where a property is undergoing renovation works. So we now have the first set of hard data which I will be examining in the weeks ahead with the Revenue Commissioners and we’ll see what conclusions we can draw from that,” he said.

When asked by The Journal if it is his understanding that the level of vacancy is closer to 3,000 properties than 50,000 properties, he said “it depends what we define as vacancy”.

“If a property is vacant on Census night, it doesn’t mean it is necessarily vacant over a prolonged period. So this tax was very specific in terms of its scope – property that was occupied for I think less than than 30 days in the year would be in scope of the tax so there are lots of kinds of terms being loosely used.

“But this is a tax administered by the Revenue, I have full confidence in their ability to do so.

“We now have the first set of verifiable data that we can use which I will be examining over the period ahead and working with other departments to see what more we can do,” he said.

On enforcement of the tax, he said it is subject to audit by Revenue who have the “resources and powers that they need”.

“It’s a self assessed tax. And it is always possible that people are not meeting their obligations. But you know, they run the risk of attracting Revenue Commissioners onto themselves if they do that.

“So the Revenue have the powers that they need. They will be following up. They will be cross-checking the returns with the data that they already have.”

Some 48,000 houses or apartments were deemed vacant in both the 2016 and 2022 censuses, representing 2% of Ireland’s housing stock.