By Ted Healy of DNG TED HEALY 

Vacant property grants of up to €50,000 are to be extended to all vacant properties across the country in a bid to bring as many unoccupied buildings back into use as family homes.

Until now the grant has provided financial supports to refurbished vacant properties in towns and villages only.

However, at the time of writing, it is expected that Housing Minister Darragh O’Brien will announce that he is bringing properties in inner city areas including Cork, Dublin, Galway, and Limerick as well as one-off farmhouses in rural locations into the scheme.

Over 400 applications for the scheme have been made to date since its launch in July of this year. While the qualifying criteria is to be broadened out, it is understood that there are currently no plans to increase the €50m which had been originally allocated for the scheme.

However, this could be reviewed if the scheme is oversubscribed.

Under the scheme, a grant of up €30,000 is available for the refurbishment of vacant properties for occupation as a principal private residence, including the conversion of a property which has not been used as residential heretofore.

However, people can apply for a top-up grant of up to €20,000 where the property is derelict and structurally unsound.

The grants, which are primarily aimed at helping first-time buyers to bridge the cost of refurbishing older and unused homes can also be combined with supports received under the Sustainable Energy Authority Of Ireland (SEAI) Better Energy Homes scheme.

Properties must be vacant for two years or more and built before 1993 to qualify.

Preliminary results from Census 2022 recorded more than 166,000 dwellings as vacant in the State.

While some of these may have been unoccupied on a temporary basis, more than 30% (48,387) of the dwellings vacant in 2022 were also out of use when the previous Census was carried out in 2016.