Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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878. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government the extent to which derelict or semi-derelict gaps in the streetscape of cities, towns and villages remain a concern, with particular reference to the urgent need to project a positive modern image; if adequate provision has been made to set a specific deadline for meeting such issues; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [1262/16]

Paudie Coffey (Waterford, Fine Gael)
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The Derelict Sites Act 1990 requires local authorities 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.

The administration of the legislation at local level, including the setting of deadlines on local issues, 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 presently being compiled.

Derelict sites throughout the State continue to remain a focus for my Department, and a suite of measures have been introduced by the Government to support town and village renewal in general on an on-going basis. I refer the Deputy to the reply to his Topical Interest Debate on 11 November 2015 on this matter, and also to the replies to Parliamentary Questions Nos 221, 222, 223 of 10 December 2015.

I am confident that the range of measures which is now available to local authorities and communities will assist in providing a much-needed impetus towards revitalising our main urban centres as well as our rural towns and villages in the coming years so that they are better positioned to take advantage of the upturn in our economy.