Colm Burke (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am raising the issue of vacant property owned by the OPW. This first came to my attention some months ago when I found that in the Blarney area there was a house that had previously been used by the Garda and had been vacant for over 20 years. The house had not been lived or used by anyone over that period. When I did a Land Registry search, I found that the property is in a folio listing 50 different properties, in locations from Castletownbere on one side of the county all the way over to Mitchelstown on the other side. The folio included Garda stations, sites and dwelling houses.

Do we have a full audit of what is in the ownership of the OPW? Do we have a detailed list of what is not being used or is unlikely to be used in the future? It should be possible to communicate with the local authorities. In this case in Blarney, I contacted Cork County Council which unfortunately replied that it had examined the property and deemed that the cost of bringing it into use was too great. It would not get involved with the property, which remains vacant. There are quite a number of vacant properties around the country that could be brought into use for community organisations or residential occupation.