Rebecca Moynihan (Labour) | Oireachtas source

It is good to see general agreement around the issue of dereliction of vacancy. The motion does not detract from the good schemes that are in place, but focuses on ways in which the system can be improved. When we go around our towns and cities, we can see the urban renewal that is needed. While the Minister of State says the CPO process is working, the Law Reform Commission says it is not. It has proposed ways to streamline the CPO process and make it easier. Those recommendations should be taken on board and adopted in the planning and development Bill through Government amendments. It is worth looking at the simple changes in procedures the Law Reform Commission says are needed.

Equally, the derelict sites legislation is not working and the Chair of the Joint Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Deputy Matthews, has stated clearly that it is not working. He proposed good Private Members' legislation from the Government's side of the House which includes ways to make the derelict sites legislation work more effectively. These things always need to be updated.

The simple fact of the matter is that while some local authorities - I was going to say how good Waterford City and County Council is on the repair and lease scheme - are using schemes well, that is not the case for all local authorities. Local authorities need to put effort into this. The EU URDF is available and has been good in some respects but local authorities and State agencies are sitting on land. We all know it is there. A mapping exercise is key to this as the question of who owns a site comes up all the time. Sometimes a site is in private ownership, but a few times I have been surprised that land, including land with houses on it, that I thought was in private ownership turned out to be owned by the State. Some State agencies do not even know how much land they own. Deputy Bacik received a reply to parliamentary question which included a list of sites and cottages owned by one State agency, CIE, but there are sites I know it owns that could become habitable homes that were not included on that list. That is not the fault of the person who compiled the list. The agency simply does not know the extent of its lands. It took me approximately two years to find out that the Prison Service, of all organisations, owns a large vacant site at the corner beside Kilmainham Gaol. The service did not even realise it owned the land. That is a problem. We need to do a mapping exercise of State-owned land. When the refugee crisis hit with the outbreak of the war in Ukraine in 2022, one of the things that should have been done is a mapping exercise. The councils, including Dublin City Council, do not know the extent of the land they own either. That is important.

We welcome that the Government does not oppose the motion and ask it to look at some of the key areas it mentions, such as carrying out a mapping exercise, and at the Law Reform Commission's proposal and Deputy Matthews's proposed legislation on derelict sites. Dereliction and vacancy are an urban renewal issue. There is simply no reason, with the money, expertise and technical knowledge we have, that all local authorities cannot be exemplars in this. We are reliant on individuals, some of whom are excellent and some of whom are not.