Michael McNamara (Clare, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I have listened to the debate so far and the one issue that has seemed to unify both sides of the House is an emphasis on derelict sites and dereliction. I wish to very much focus on that issue. All Members accept there is a dire need for housing. My county of Clare is no different from any other in that regard. I wish to focus on dereliction because many Deputies spoke about the number of derelict houses across rural Ireland. The only place in which one does not see widespread dereliction is Dublin. Even then there is dereliction in parts of Dublin and certainly there is a significant space not utilised over shops, business premises, etc. In fairness, the Housing for All plan mentions dereliction quite a bit, but when one drills down into it and looks at the concrete steps to be taken, one sees that dereliction is only mentioned once in the chapter dealing with the table of actions - it is one of the last chapters of the plan - and that reference is in the context of harnessing European regional development funding to tackle vacancy and dereliction in towns.

The lead is to be taken by the regional assemblies. I have never served on a local authority but, as far as I know, regional assemblies are comprised of members of local authorities. Local authorities already have extensive powers under the Derelict Sites Act 1990 in respect of dereliction. Under the Act, local authorities have a duty to take reasonable steps to ensure that any lands situated in their functional area do not become derelict. They can serve a notice on the owner of a derelict site. The Minister can direct the local authority to serve a notice in respect of a site. The Minister can make a direction in respect of any land on the derelict sites register that is owned by a statutory body. Local authorities have the power to acquire, by agreement or compulsorily, any derelict site in their functional area and use it for whatever purpose they wish. Local authorities have the power to issue a derelict sites levy. That is a considerable range of powers. It may be the case that there is very little about derelict sites in the Housing for All plan because there are extensive powers on the Statute Book.

However, very little is being done with those powers across the country. I tabled a series of parliamentary questions on this issue earlier this month I asked about the number of derelict sites registered for each local authority, the number of notices issued under section 11 by each local authority in 2019, 2020 and 2021, the number of directions made by the Minister and his predecessors under section 12, the number of directions made by the Minister and his predecessors under section 13, and the number of derelict sites acquired by each local authority under the powers provided to them.

The table is quite depressing. Notwithstanding all of the powers and the number of people who are looking for social housing in every county in Ireland, we see that very little is being done.

In my own county of Clare, four notices were issued and no levies were collected. County Clare is probably among the poorer performing counties, but it is by no means the worst and by no means unique. Everybody agrees that dereliction is a problem and we need to bring these properties back into the housing stock, but nobody seems to do anything about it. That is not to take a cut at any particular side. The Government parties do not control the local authorities.

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