Cian O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the town centre first policy and the measures that are being taken on this.

It is positive. There have been some very good points made so far in this discussion. In particular, Deputy Alan Farrell was absolutely right in pointing out that huge mistakes have been made in planning in the past which have affected our town centres and our villages. All of those re-zonings took place for out-of-town development, retail and also for residential, which is away from services and amenities. This meant that the particular landowners saw a windfall in their land, with prices increasing hugely. Those re-zonings, which were against the advice of planners, such as matrix and leapfrog zonings etc., have been hugely damaging for urban centres and town centres. They have led not only to car dependency, but to dereliction and vacancy in town centres. In recent years, this has been on a very large scale. We have had many of those poor zonings. It is important to say that, because town centre initiatives are important. It is also important that we learn from the mistakes that have been made so they do not happen again in the future.

In the heatwave in Chicago in 1995 which killed more than 700 people, the power systems were caused to melt. The common denominator that was found about the areas with the highest death tolls was that these were areas where people were isolated. It was found that people who were living in areas with good public amenities, good public spaces around them and good community organisations fared the best, not surprisingly, both in survival and in health outcomes. Of course, we know that is the case. Bad planning creates isolation, breaks down communities, breaks down access to good public spaces and amenities and people become car dependent. Not only does that enrich the individual landowners who lobby for that, it also has real impacts on people's lives. Of course, there is also a huge environmental and climate cost.

Between 2002 and 2006, when a huge amount of building was taking place in the country during the Celtic tiger boom, only 4% of the growth in the Irish population took place in the five main cities, combined. All the rest was outside of them. Much of it was scattered deep into rural areas. The population of an entire city was built in rural Ireland around those years. While we saw Ireland’s energy consumption increasing from 1990 to 2007 by 83%, transport energy use increased by 181%. That overwhelmingly happened because of those bad planning policies, because of an increase in car dependency and because of all of the problems that go with that.

Of course, people have to live in the countryside and in rural areas as well and that needs to be supported. I remember a time some years ago when I was campaigning in a by-election in Meath. I spent a Saturday afternoon knocking on doors in what was originally a rural area. It was only at the end of the afternoon of knocking on doors that I met a farmer who was working on the land. Pretty much everyone else who I met was in ribbon developments. Most of them had moved out of Dublin. I will not name the area. There was no sense of community. Many people were living in isolation, with gates, security etc. I could see how the community had broken down. Of course, we need to support people who are living in rural areas, in clusters and in villages, as well as all the supports that go with that. There is huge value in that.

Dereliction and vacancy have been caused by the poor planning policies of recent years. It is worth looking at what has happened. Between 1991 and 2006, the number of households increased by 440,000, but the number of housing units in that time increased by 763,000 units. Some of those are holiday homes, but many were developments in the wrong locations. They were fuelled by tax incentives. Ironically, the section 23 tax incentive was originally brought in to combat urban decay and to promote urban renewal in areas where regeneration was needed. However, those tax incentives were then rolled out to area after area around the country. They fuelled speculative developments, including an oversupply of housing in some areas where it was not needed. It also fuelled an oversupply of housing in areas where there were not good amenities, public transport etc. That is one of the factors that led to the level of vacancy that we now have, as well as the level of vacancy recorded in the 2011 census. In fact, some 230,000 housing units were empty when we do not include holiday homes. That number decreased somewhat by the 2016 census. Hopefully, it has decreased a bit since then as well. However, we know from the Geodirectory.ie report in the fourth quarter of 2020 that there were 92,000 vacant addresses. That figure does not include homes that do not accept postage. It does not include apartments. It does not count separately buildings of fewer than five apartments. Therefore, it is more than that figure. We also know from figures in the Geodirectory.ie report from the second quarter of 2021 that, in addition to those vacant homes, there were more than 22,000 derelict homes and almost 30,000 vacant commercial buildings that could have been used for housing.

Part of the reason for this vacancy was the overuse of section 23 tax reliefs. It is important that any measures the Government takes now are well-designed and well-targeted so they do not have unintended consequences. Too often policies, and particularly those in housing, which to be fair were well meaning, have had poor outcomes. One need look no further than the devastation caused in some communities by the surrender grants, which were brought in in the early 1980s. They were designed to free-up social housing, but they had a devastating impact on those community structures by often giving the community leaders a financial incentive to leave. This often then resulted in a collapse in community leadership and organisation. It has taken some time to rebuild that.

It is also worth noting the ground floor vacancy rates in towns, as well as the good work that has been done by the Heritage Council on that, which has shown vacancy rates on ground floors. These figures are as high as 28% in our towns. Much of that has been driven by those same tax incentives, as well as those same bad land re-zoning policies, which have seen out-of-town retail.

The best kind of larger retail developments, and I think we are all familiar with this, that have happened the last 20 years are those that are integrated into town centres, into the main streets and that serve as an extension of those. Yes, these can be more difficult in terms of planning. When people have an easier, green-field, out-of-town, car-dependent option, they will go for that. That is why good planning around this is so important. We know that the most sustainable buildings are existing buildings and that 50 tonnes of carbon emissions generally are generated in building new homes. This is compared with 15 tonnes to refurbish existing homes. There is environmental damage from construction waste and demolition waste. That is why it is important to re-use existing buildings and to enhance our town centres.

The Government should introduce a tax on vacancy and on vacant buildings straight away. The Government should be bringing in compulsory sales orders so local authorities, that do not have the resources, time or finances to go through compulsory purchase orders, can put in a compulsory sales order, like what is done in Scotland. This will get buildings that are falling into decay back into use as quickly as possible. The Government should introduce straightaway compulsory rental orders, so that people who have empty residential or commercial properties that are not being rented out can be forced to rent them.

In my constituency, which is in a new area that was developed over the last ten to 20 years, more than half of the commercial retail units are still empty. I suspect that the commercial rates that the local authority should be levying on those vacant units are not being levied. I am awaiting further information on that.

See this speech in context