Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I spoke earlier on this. There is no reluctance to strengthen the Act. I do not believe local authorities have been strong enough in enforcing the Act. That is a view I have. They might argue it takes too long and there are legal issues and so on which can go on forever. There are other ways to refurbish streetscapes and town centres. We also have to think about our town centres, streets and cities of the future because they are going to be different. There will be a bigger mix of residential as well as commercial. The scale of it will be different from the scale of the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s when we had large-scale supermarkets in our town centres. All of that is changing. That is probably a more effective route to getting rid of this dereliction.

In my experience, no matter how many Acts we create, legal routes do not get to the promised land early enough. The urban regeneration scheme is the big game-changer. There is €400 million allocated to Cork for the docklands and the Grand Parade but it will take three or four years before that will manifest itself. Meanwhile, there is dereliction around the very areas we need to address.

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