Brian Brennan (Wicklow-Wexford, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I raise the issue of dereliction in our cities, towns and villages. The blight of dereliction and long-term vacancy is prevalent throughout our country. According to the CSO figures for 2022, there are 163,000 derelict properties. I welcome the progress and the millions, if not billions, of euro invested nationwide clearly showing in the vacant property refurbishment grant statistics presented this week. However, I question the disparity in investment between local authorities and this needs to be addressed. I welcome the compulsory purchase orders activation programme from April 2023, which provides a planned, systematic and proactive approach by local authorities to bringing vacant and derelict properties into use when there is no successful engagement with the authorities. Again, I question whether all local authorities have been fully committed to following up on this. For example, despite there being not one but two separate Acts designed to mandate the registration of dereliction, a quick online search across multiple local authorities around the country show that these registers do not reflect the reality we see with our own eyes. If we are not recording this information, how on earth can we take the next step? How can we get these properties back into residential or commercial use? For those owners who do not co-operate with their local authorities, penalties must be increased. Let us take France as an example. A tax of 17% on the annual rental value is imposed on a property vacant for one year. This is increased to 34% in year two. We need to look at better incentives for living above the shop. There is huge untapped potential on our high streets and side streets across the country. Not only will this increase housing availability, but the knock-on effects of bringing these properties back to life will bring more footfall to our cities, towns and village centres.

Overall, dereliction can only be described as a scourge, as it is having a detrimental effect on the social fabric of our towns and villages. We need to take control of the dereliction crisis. We must ensure those vacant property owners simply use it or lose it. Dereliction should be a source of national embarrassment. We pride ourselves as a hotbed of tourism, yet we are welcoming our tourists into towns that are falling down around us. However, more importantly, we are in the middle of a housing crisis and fighting tooth and nail to build more houses while there are tens of thousands of properties standing vacant and derelict on every street corner. This is a missed opportunity and while we are in the middle of this housing crisis, we must act.

The programme for Government states, "We will continue to tackle vacancy and dereliction with enhanced compulsory purchase order (CPO) powers and an ambitious grant system." It lists several key measures to tackle this issue. We need to get moving and both empower and drive local authorities to act swiftly and decisively on this. We cannot afford to continue to take a soft approach. We need enforcement of vacant property fines and potentially increase them to give them more teeth. We can also do work to incentivise property owners to act. We need to look at the incentive packages that we have on offer and modify them to bring people with us to get these buildings back in use.

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