Thomas Gould (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein)
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Sorry, I do not mean to interrupt Ms Graham, I am just managing my time. This legislation came in in 1990. That is 32 years ago. Was there no one in the Department looking at this in 32 years? I have raised this for 12 years in Cork City Council where I was stonewalled. Different Sinn Féin representatives have raised the issue of vacancy and dereliction. An official told me once off the record that they were taking a softly-softly approach to land hoarders. Softly-softly is no good for people in homeless accommodation or who do not have homes. It is no good to the communities that are being destroyed.

I mean no disrespect, but this circular was sent out in November. When was the decision made? I do not blame Ms Graham personally and I want to make that clear. I believe this is Government and ministerial failures over consecutive Governments. Someone must have told the Department. I think nine local authorities did not put a cent of a levy on last year. No local authority collected more than 10% of the levies. This is a scandal that land hoarders are being allowed away with this and the Department and local authorities are doing virtually nothing. The facts speak for themselves.