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Less talk about the future, Tanaiste, where is your plan to renovate derelict homes owned by the Council now?

  • Derelict properties owned by Dublin City Council with no plan because funding as Buy and Renew Scheme funding dried up last year for renovations.
  • Tánaiste is all talk about stick (and its very long stick) and there is no mention about the carrot – direct state funding for local authorities to tackle dereliction.
  • Reality is that vacancy and dereliction is a scourge across all communities in Dublin Central.

Deputy Marie Sherlock has said that rather than policy planning by press release, the Tánaiste must commit to releasing funding for local authorities to CPO and renovate properties to bring them back into use as social and affordable properties.

Deputy Sherlock said:

“Today, we have yet more touted policy announcements by the Tánaiste – first, it was around his new savings scheme and now it is on the derelict property tax. People are fed up with the talk – it is time for real action by the Tánaiste and his Government.

“We have a government that is still figuring out its approach on the derelict property tax, all the while, local authorities are stalling on properties with no ability to renovate them as the Government’s own buy and renew scheme effectively tried up last year for renovations.

“Last week in the Dáil, the Government confirmed following questioning by me a plan to move to a type of “renew and purchase” model where it appears that contractors will be given homes to sell back to the Council for a fixed price.

“But just like many recent pronouncements by Government, we have no detail. We need to know about funding and when it will come into effect.

“The impact of all this hiatus is that homes now owned by DCC continue to lie idle, are deemed too expensive to renovate, are an ongoing blight on their communities and will now probably face the appalling prospect of being sold off to a developer for a nominal sum.

“It is time for the Tánaiste to give us the detail. Our question for the Tánaiste is, what are you going to do now about dereliction? Communities are demanding action, funding, and housing – not press releases.

“There is no clearer example of the Governments failure on dereliction than 19 and 21 Connaught Street and 8 and 10 Ferguson Road, Drumcondra.

“These are just two appalling examples of a blight of dereliction on communities where both are derelict for more than twenty years, with a torturous record of being on DCC’s derelict site register since 2009 in the case of Connaught Street and 2005 when the process began for Ferguson Road.

“According to geodirectory, there are 1,494 long term vacant properties within Dublin Central and yet there are only 40 on DCC’s derelict site register. This shows that even current measures to address vacancy and dereliction have simply failed.

“Enough spin. Enough press releases. We need clarity now about the new “renew and purchase” scheme and funding to be unlocked for local authorities to take the kind of drastic action that vacancy and dereliction requires in the midst of the worst housing emergency this state has ever seen.”