Let Revenue pursue landlords for derelict and vacant sites levies say Cork campaigners

CALLS have been made for Revenue services to take over the collection of derelict and vacant site levies from local authorities, after it was revealed Cork City Council collected just €470,000 in levies in the first 10 months of this year.

Information obtained from Cork City Council revealed the local authority collected around €102,000 in derelict site levies and around €370,000 in vacant site levies between January and the end of October, 2023.

Earlier this year, it was revealed that the local authority invoiced €1.7m in derelict site levies each year in 2020, 2021 and 2022.

In 2020, the total collected was €163,231 while around €570,000 was collected In 2021, and just €284,000 was collected in 2022.

Out of the more than €5m invoiced during those three years, just over €1m was actually collected.

In response to a question submitted to council by Independent Councillor Thomas Moloney ahead of a Cork City Council meeting in recent months, Director of Services, Fearghal Reidy, confirmed that Cork City Council levied a total of 246 properties under the Derelict Sites Act in the past four years.

Mr Reidy confirmed there were 67 properties levied in 2020; 61 in 2021; 57 in 2022; and 61 in 2023.

He also confirmed that Cork City Council is actively pursuing legal action on a number of levies.

'AMOUNTS TOO LOW'

However, calls have been made for changes to the collection of levies.

Cork-based activists Frank O’Connor and Jude Sherry, founders of Anois, have been highlighting the issues of dereliction and vacancy in Cork and further afield for a number of years.

Speaking to The Echo, the duo called for the collection of all levies to be transferred to the authority of the Revenue service.

“The amounts collected by Cork City Council are far too low and do not represent the scale of dereliction and vacancy in the city,” Mr O’Connor stated.

“Widespread dereliction costs the community as tax payers and in terms of all the other many negative impacts.

“Given the fact that all the local authorities in Ireland have consistently struggled to collect the full dereliction levies since 1990, we believe that responsibility for collection of all levies should be immediately allocated to Inland Revenue.

“This would be transformative.” 

Cork City Council was contacted for comment.