90% of derelict site levies in Cork city unpaid this year, JPC meeting hears 

90 per cent of derelict site levies in Cork city have been unpaid this year, a meeting of the Cork City Joint Policing Committee was told. 

Chief Executive of Cork City Council Ann Doherty told the meeting that the council received just 10% of an estimated €1.1 million in fines it levied this year on owners of derelict sites in the city.

Though invoices totaling €1,109,324 were issued to owners in 2023, just over €102,000 has been collected since January by Cork City Council, the JPC heard.

There are 147 sites on the Derelict Site Register, up from 109 in 2022, and the local authority is also currently in the process of adding a further 55 sites to the Register.

Under the Derelict Sites Act of 1990, local authorities must collect a charge of 7% of the value of a derelict property each year that it remains derelict, but the issue of unpaid levies is a long-running issue in both Cork city and county.

Only €3,300 was disclosed by Cork County Council to The Echo as being collected in derelict site levies in 2022, despite 11,994 vacant properties reported in the census.

Pádraig Rice, a local election candidate for the Social Democrats, told The Echo: "It is utterly unacceptable that 90% of derelict site levies in Cork are not collected.

“We constantly hear that the Council doesn't have funding for basic services, yet it doesn't collect the money it is owed. It's mind-boggling.

"We have a big problem with vacancy and dereliction. These empty houses must be turned into homes for families.

“One way to do that is to tax people who leave houses vacant or derelict. This policy will only work if the money is actually collected.

“The fact that 90% of the levies weren't collected is more evidence that the government is not taking the housing shortage seriously."

Cork-based founders of Anois, Frank O’Connor and Jude Sherry, have been highlighting the issues of dereliction and vacancy in Cork for some years, and recently called for the collection of all levies to be taken over by Revenue.

Mr O’Connor told the Echo last month: “The amounts collected by Cork City Council are far too low and do not represent the scale of dereliction and vacancy in the city.

“Widespread dereliction costs the community as taxpayers 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.”