Ciarán Cuffe (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party)

The Department is progressing a range of actions, with the co-operation of local authorities and other key stakeholders, to address the issue of unfinished or unoccupied estates. These actions include an accurate quantification, classification and mapping of the various types of unfinished or unoccupied estates on a county by county basis to understand the scale and distribution of the problem. I anticipate that, following a pilot exercise with one local authority, a comprehensive national inventory should be completed in the middle of the year.

The Department is also preparing a best practice policy manual which aims to identify the necessary responses to ensure satisfactory outcomes in tackling difficulties on specific sites in a co-ordinated and pro-active manner. The responses will require a range of interventions across a number of disciplines; there are issues of public safety, the provision of bonds and securities, environmental protection, building control and estate management.

Developers and owners of sites are required to ensure that they are left in a safe and secure condition. Local authorities are prioritising action to ensure that these obligations are discharged and that sites within their areas are properly secured from public access and, where necessary, are made structurally sound. In this regard, existing legislation such as the Derelict Sites Act 1990 and the Litter Acts 1997 to 2003, along with planning legislation, can be used to ensure developers and the owners of sites engage with local authorities in addressing specific difficulties. We will also keep the need for further legislative reforms to assist local authorities on this issue under review.

It is a matter for the National Asset Management Agency to consider how it deals with unfinished or incomplete estates that come within its remit. I will make the Department's data available to NAMA to inform its analysis.

See this speech in context