I raise the issue of dereliction in our cities, towns and villages. The blight of dereliction and long-term vacancy is prevalent throughout our country. According to the CSO figures for 2022, there are 163,000 derelict properties. I welcome the progress and the millions, if not billions, of euro invested nationwide clearly showing in the vacant property refurbishment grant statistics presented this week. However, I question the disparity in investment between local authorities and this needs to be addressed. I welcome the compulsory purchase orders activation programme from April 2023, which provides a planned, systematic and proactive approach by local authorities to bringing vacant and derelict properties into use when there is no successful engagement with the authorities. Again, I question whether all local authorities have been fully committed to following up on this. For example, despite there being not one but two separate Acts designed to mandate the registration of dereliction, a quick online search across multiple local authorities around the country show that these registers do not reflect the reality we see with our own eyes. If we are not recording this information, how on earth can we take the next step? How can we get these properties back into residential or commercial use? For those owners who do not co-operate with their local authorities, penalties must be increased. Let us take France as an example. A tax of 17% on the annual rental value is imposed on a property vacant for one year. This is increased to 34% in year two. We need to look at better incentives for living above the shop. There is huge untapped potential on our high streets and side streets across the country. Not only will this increase housing availability, but the knock-on effects of bringing these properties back to life will bring more footfall to our cities, towns and village centres. Overall, dereliction can only be described as a scourge, as it is having a detrimental effect on the social fabric of our towns and villages. We need to take control of the dereliction crisis. We must ensure those vacant property owners simply use it or lose it. Dereliction should be a source of national embarrassment. We pride ourselves as a hotbed of tourism, yet we are welcoming our tourists into towns that are falling down around us. However, more importantly, we are in the middle of a housing crisis and fighting tooth and nail to build more houses while there are tens of thousands of properties standing vacant and derelict on every street corner. This is a missed opportunity and while we are in the middle of this housing crisis, we must act. The programme for Government states, "We will continue to tackle vacancy and dereliction with enhanced compulsory purchase order (CPO) powers and an ambitious grant system." It lists several key measures to tackle this issue. We need to get moving and both empower and drive local authorities to act swiftly and decisively on this. We cannot afford to continue to take a soft approach. We need enforcement of vacant property fines and potentially increase them to give them more teeth. We can also do work to incentivise property owners to act. We need to look at the incentive packages that we have on offer and modify them to bring people with us to get these buildings back in use.
Sentiment score: 0.13
I thank the Minister of State and welcome his action plan, which is very much needed, and the further investment. I take the Minister of State's point about the involvement of the local authority, and how important that is. If we take Arklow, the town I am from and where I have spent all my working life of 25 years, it was a vibrant town, with a port and a buzzing main street. My wife, my two kids and I walked down that main street on the Saturday before Christmas and we were the only four people there on it. It was absolutely frightening. However, I do see green shoots in the town. I see the wastewater treatment plant opening up next week. I have to give credit to the existing owners of premises who are trying to keep the main street going. What we need is support. We have got engagement in the past couple of months from the local authority, shop owners and the chamber of commerce. It is key that we link all these people together and get them to drive the town on. There are huge green shoots for the town, but the problems in Arklow are being replicated across Ireland. The heart and soul of any town is the main street. If you do not have a main street, you have nothing. The key is to try to get that moving again in Arklow. That is our goal. We have other cases like Arklow, including Shillelagh and Camolin. As I said, it is right across the board. We need to get our teeth into this. It is a real problem. It affects the social fabric of every town if it does not have a thriving main street. I have faith in what the Minister of State is going to do, but we need action and full engagement from all the parties. If the owners of these properties are not going to use them, we have to move them on, although let us try to engage with them. There is a serious health and safety risk also as some of the premises are literally falling down. I thank the Minister of State for his time.
Sentiment score: 0.13