Imelda Goldsboro (Fianna Fail)
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I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Christopher O'Sullivan. I call Senator Joe Conway.

Joe Conway (Independent)
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Go raibh míle maith agat. I want to address the business of derelict sites in ten brief itemised points. Over half of local authorities are failing to collect money from the owners of derelict sites. The latest figures suggest that councils are owed more than €20 million in unpaid levies. Seventeen of the 31 local authorities did not collect any money from dereliction merchants. Just €604,000 was collected by the councils in the last year reckonable, despite close to €1 million being owed in these local authorities. This means that €20.5 million is owed by dereliction merchants and the meter is running all the time. Each local authority keeps a derelict sites register, which includes the sites subject to the annual levy of 7%. If unpaid, this levy attracts interest of 1.25% per month. Local authorities can take dereliction merchants to court to recover the debt or they can compulsorily purchase the site and the money owed can become a charge on the land. Incidents of dereliction increased by 21% in 2023 compared with 2022. If local authorities are so ineffectual in collecting levies, would the Minister and his Department consider increasing the levy to something like 10%? Finally, and this is more in the realm of local and folk wisdom, I am sure that the Minister and everybody here has heard the old adage that it is not how high you swing the hatchet; it is how deep you bury it.

We have the legislation and levies but they are not working. We must use our intellectual grey matter as a society, and as local authorities, to come up with answers and understand why this is not working because dereliction is a curse and scourge on local towns and local communities. We cannot realistically allow this to go on because we are patently failing to deal with the scourge of dereliction. There are too many people wriggling out of it by giving easy answers. When we try to raise this issue, we are given all sorts of pat answers - we are told that it is difficult to go to court and that we will never get a washer out of them. I wonder whether the Department, the Ministers and the combined wisdom of the Government can get their heads together to incentivise local authorities - they need to really put the squeeze on local authorities - to go after these people because it is a situation that should not be allowed to prevail.

Christopher O'Sullivan (Cork South-West, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Senator. In fairness to him, he has laid out his points in a structured manner and has covered all of the areas. I wish to say at the outset that I agree with him. It is an issue that we need to address. I am going to set out the existing legislation and the powers that local authorities have, but I will come back to his points later in terms of what we can do going forward.

The Derelict Sites Act 1990 imposes a general duty on every owner and occupier of land to take all reasonable steps to ensure the land does not become, or continue to be, a derelict site. The Act also imposes a duty on local authorities to take all reasonable steps, including the exercise of appropriate statutory powers, to ensure any land within their functional area does not become, or continue to be, a derelict site. Each local authority also maintains a derelict sites register under section 8 of the Act for sites which they consider are derelict under the Act.  Sites entered on the derelict sites register are subject to an annual derelict sites levy of 7% of market value, which will continue to apply until the site is rendered non-derelict. As the Senator mentioned, at the end of 2023 there were outstanding community levies of €20.45 million on derelict sites nationally. The collection of these levies is a matter for the individual local authorities concerned. A review of the Derelict Sites Act is being conducted, with local authorities invited to make submissions on potential improvements in the legislative provisions and the way they are applied. Discussions on the review are ongoing. It is intended in the context of related policies, legislative amendments and funding schemes that have been developed since the review commenced, in addition to the increasing challenges associated with dereliction, to now further consider the potential to improve the legislation and related supporting mechanisms.

Placing sites on the derelict sites register, and collecting levies in respect of those sites, is not the sole mechanism that local authorities apply to tackle dereliction. Local authorities are working collaboratively with property owners in local communities on the use of a range of available statutory tools and funding schemes with a view to achieving the ultimate goal of bringing properties back into use. The 2018 planning and development regulations provide for an exemption, which has now been extended to the end of 2025, from the need to obtain planning permission for the change of use of certain vacant commercial buildings, including vacant properties above groundfloor premises, to residential use such as above-shop living. Returns from the local authorities in relation to the exemption for 2018 to 2023 indicate that 1,165 development notifications were received from developers for refurbishments of vacant commercial properties, relating to a total of 2,716 potential new homes being provided.

The vacant property refurbishment grant provides funding of up to €50,000 for the refurbishment of vacant properties, and up to €70,000 where a property is confirmed derelict. The grant is making the transformation of these properties into homes an affordable option for individual home buyers and owners. At the of 2024, over 11,300 applications had been received for the vacant property grant. Over 7,700 of these applications have been approved and over 1,400 grants have been paid to date as refurbishment works have been completed.

Tackling vacancy is also a key action of the Town Centre First initiative, which is a whole-of-government policy framework to address the decline in the health of towns and to support measures to revitalise them. Dedicated town regeneration officers are now established within local authorities. They work closely with vacant homes officers and others to comprehensively develop regeneration and investment plans.

As the Senator will have seen, there are incentives to bring some of these vacant properties back into use and some of them are working. I am sure that some local authorities are better than others in using the tools that are available to them. The legislation is there. Local authorities have that legislation. For some reason, there are large amounts of levies uncollected. That absolutely is an issue. If we are seen to be a light touch, this dereliction issue will continue. The chink of light for Senator Conway is that there is now an opportunity to review the legislation and perhaps give local authorities a bit more teeth in this regard.

Joe Conway (Independent)
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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.

Christopher O'Sullivan (Cork South-West, Fianna Fail)
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Again, Tramore is a stunning spot with which I am very familiar. He is right that it is a shame to see many of our beautiful coastal towns, which are important for tourism, impacted by dereliction. It should not be happening. As I mentioned, there are schemes to incentivise property owners to bring properties back into use. That also helps to solve the housing crisis, which is key. That is the way it should be done.

There is an opportunity here. I am sure the Senator will have an opportunity to contribute to the review of the Derelict Sites Act so that we can give local authorities more teeth. If those sums are not being collected, that is an issue we need to address. We all know of towns that are similar to Tramore. Towns across Ireland have issues with dereliction. Progress has been made in some regards but the Senator is right that we could do more. We could solve two problems. Derelict buildings are eyesores but are also potential solutions for tourism, if we are talking about tourist accommodation, and housing. I again thank the Senator for his contribution.