Photograph: iStockOf all the rabbit holes we’ve gone down on housing, the vacant property narrative might qualify as the most pointless. The then government promised action in the form of a vacant property tax. But the idea that we have thousands of these vacant properties ready to be leveraged back into the system has been debunked time and time again. As you would expect, the rural vacancy rate was higher (5.4 per cent) while the urban vacancy rate was lower (2.2 per cent). But the vacant property narrative here, and the tax income that it can yield, falls into the category of something that sounds good, that will play well politically, but that actually delivers nothing.

Source: The Irish Times March 27, 2026 09:01 UTC