Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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221. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government the extent to which derelict, incomplete or abandoned sites in various local authority administrative areas continue to remain a focus for him with particular reference to the urgent need to bring about early improvement; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [44643/15]

Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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222. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government the extent to which derelict, incomplete or abandoned sites and developments in the various towns and villages in County Kildare continue to remain a focus for him, with particular reference to the need to encourage every effort to address the issues outstanding and present in all towns and villages in a modern, business-orientated fashion; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [44644/15]

Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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223. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government if he continues to address derelict sites or abandoned developments in or adjacent to the various towns and villages which were adversely affected by the economic collapse; if he will encourage the re-activation of such development, if he will examine any administrative procedures which might impede bringing matters to an early satisfactory conclusion; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [44645/15]

Paudie Coffey (Waterford, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Question Nos.221 to 223, inclusive, together.

The Derelict Sites Act 1990 provides that local authorities are required to take all reasonable steps, including the exercise of appropriate statutory powers, to ensure that any land within their functional area does not become, or continue to be, a derelict site. To this end, local authorities have been given substantial powers under the Act in relation to any such sites, including powers to require specified measures to be taken in relation to a derelict site, to impose a levy on sites which are included in the local authority’s derelict sites register, or to compulsorily acquire any derelict site. It is a matter for local authorities to determine the most appropriate use of the legislation within their respective functional areas.

Derelict sites throughout the State, particularly in urban areas, continue to remain a focus for my Department, and whereas the administration of the legislation at local level is a matter for the relevant local authority, my Department updates, on an annual basis, a Schedule of Urban Areas designated by local authorities as areas in which the derelict site levy can be applied in line with the provisions of the Act. The latest update of this Schedule (for 2015) is nearing completion.

The recently enacted Urban Regeneration and Housing Act 2015 introduced a new measure, the vacant site levy, which is aimed at incentivising the development and use of vacant, underutilised sites in urban areas . When it becomes operational from 2019 onwards, it is envisaged that the levy will be instrumental in bringing vacant, underutilised sites into beneficial use for housing and urban regeneration purposes. To avoid a double levy situation in the case of any individual site, the Act provides that the derelict site levy shall not be payable in respect of any land on which the vacant site levy will be payable.

Town and village renewal is being supported on an on-going basis by the suite of measures introduced by the Government as set out in the reply to the Deputy’s recent Parliamentary Question No. 235 of 5 November 2015 on the matter, and in my more recent reply to the Deputy’s Topical Interest Debate motion on 11 November 2015.