Thomas Gould (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein)
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231. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government the funding provided to Cork City Council for CPO, in each of the years 2020 to date. [45737/24]

Alan Dillon (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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In April 2023, I launched the CPO Activation Programme requiring a proactive and systematic approach by local authorities to identify vacant and derelict properties and engage with owners to bring those properties back into use. This includes the use of compulsory purchase powers by local authorities to actively use their legislative powers to acquire vacant and derelict properties, where engagement with owners has been unsuccessful. While Local authorities are empowered under a number of statutes to acquire land, by agreement or compulsorily, for the purposes of performing any of its functions, the number of derelict sites acquired within their functional area under the provisions of the Derelict Sites Act 1990 (the Act) are submitted to my Department as part of the annual return on the operation of the Act.

The number of sites specifically acquired under the Act by Cork City Council, both by way of Compulsory Purchase Order (CPO) or by agreement, since 2020 is provided in the Table below.

In January 2023, a third round of funding support under the Urban Regeneration Development Fund was announced. Supporting key objectives of Housing for All and Town Centre First, this round of URDF support specifically addresses long term vacancy and dereliction across URDF eligible cities and town.

This is being achieved through the provision of a €150m revolving fund for local authorities to acquire long term vacant or derelict properties. The fund will be replenished from the proceeds of sale allowing local authorities to establish a rolling programme to tackle long-term vacancy and dereliction without a requirement for borrowing and the associated financial risk.

There were three key criteria for the first round of property approvals, onto Local Authority’s Approved Programmes:

• Existing building (sites were not approved)
• Town centre zoned
• Expected to yield residential end-use
• Cork City Council were allocated €6 million under Call 3 of the URDF to address derelict and vacant properties in the city, with €1,200,000 (20%) in pre-funding issued to the Council to encourage early activity under the programme. The Council have 59 properties on their approved programme, 3 of which have been acquired by compulsory purchase and the process to purchase by CPO has commenced on a further 2 properties.

Thomas Gould (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein)
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232. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government the amount of funding provided to Cork City Council for housing maintenance, in each of the years 2019 to date. [45738/24]

Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail)
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The management and maintenance of local authority housing stock, including pre-letting repairs to vacant properties, the implementation of a planned maintenance programme and carry out of responsive repairs, are matters for each individual local authority under Section 58 of the Housing Act 1966. Local authorities also have a legal obligation to ensure that all of their tenanted properties are compliant with the provisions of the Housing (Standards for Rented Houses) Regulation, 2019.

Notwithstanding the legal obligation on local authorities to manage and maintain their own stock, my Department does provide annual funding support to local authorities for management and maintenance under a number of funding programmes.

Under the Voids Programme, my Department has supported local authorities in refurbishing vacant social homes and returning them to productive use. Since 2014 Cork City Council has received funding of €27,193,569 million to support the return to productive use of 1,624 properties under this programme.

Under the Energy Efficiency Programme, my Department funds the carrying out of retrofitting works to local authority dwellings. Over the period 2013 to 2023 over 7,491 units of social housing stock have been retrofitted by Cork City Council with a total exchequer spend of €26,675,322 million under the scheme.

Under the Disabled Person Grant Scheme, my Department funds local authorities in carrying out necessary adaptation works to local authority properties to cater for the needs of elderly and disabled tenants and families living in overcrowded conditions in local authority properties. Since 2011 my Department has provided funding of €16,868,630 million to Cork City under this programme.

Under the Regeneration Scheme, my Department funds programmes of estate regeneration in a number of targeted areas around the country. This programme focuses on the remediation and upgrade of existing local authority homes within defined areas of disadvantage and can also provide for some new homes as part of the overall regeneration plan for the area. Cork City Council has a regeneration programme ‘Cork Northwest Quarter Regeneration Programme’ concentrated within the Knocknaheeny area of the city. Since 2019 to the end of 2023 my Department has provided funding of €28 million to Cork City Council under this programme. Further projects within this regeneration area are in the pipeline.

My Department has provided funding of almost €100 million to Cork City Council under the above stock improvement schemes. However, work is ongoing with the local authority sector, through the Local Government Management Agency (LGMA) to drive a planned maintenance approach to the maintenance of local authority housing stock. This will see circa 150,000 local authority social housing properties surveyed to determine their condition so as to inform future work programmes and ensure the available funding is spent in a strategic and focussed way.

My Department will continue to fund local authorities for stock improvement works but it is also important that local authorities increasingly seek to move to a position whereby all rents being received are spent on the proper management and maintenance of the local authority housing stock.