Joe Conway (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Gabhaim buíochas leis an Aire Stáit as a bheith anseo chun déileáil leis an gceist chasta seo. I want to use the maritime coastal town where I live, Tramore, as an illustration of what dereliction looks like. We have two derelict hotels - the Grand Hotel and the Tramore Hotel. The Grand Hotel has been derelict for more than eight years, since 2016, and the Tramore Hotel has been derelict for many more years. There has been a loss of 100 rooms between the two hotels for a period of at least eight years. I have done a back-of-an-envelope calculation of the cost of the loss of bed nights and the loss to the economy of Tramore as a result of those two derelictions. I estimate that there has been a loss, in the form of visitor numbers and the ancillary spin-off to other businesses, of €90 million since 2016. No small maritime holiday town can afford losses of that magnitude. That is what dereliction looks like and what it does to communities, town and small economies.