Opposition hit out at introduction of derelict property tax

By Bairbre Holmes, Press Association

The opposition has criticised the Government’s approach to dereliction after the Tánaiste brought proposals for a new tax to Cabinet.

Speaking ahead of the cabinet meeting at Government Buildings on Tuesday, Simon Harris said that during the full year of 2024, 11 local authorities did not collect any money using the Derelict Sites Levy.

He said he hoped the new tax would come in next year, but that would rely on local authorities “playing ball” and providing the Government with registers of derelict properties.

During Leaders’ Questions later in the day Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald said the tax may not start being collected until 2028 and will only apply to places with populations of more than 4,000 people.

“This phased approach means that thousands of derelict properties will not be captured by the tax in its initial phase,” she said.

“If the Government is serious about dealing with the blight of dereliction, urgency is what is required.

“You have to put it up to those responsible for dereliction with legislation, with serious financial penalties that will get homes and buildings back into use.”

“It is incredible,” she added. “There’s nothing in Simon Harris’s proposal to ensure the collection of the more than 30 million euro already owed in derelict site levies.”

Responding, Taoiseach Micheál Martin said: “Vacant dereliction is multi-stranded and must involve a multi-stranded approach”.

He pointed to a number of schemes he said the Government has introduced to tackle the issue including the “game-changing” vacant property refurbishment grant, the vacant above the shop grant and the urban regeneration development fund.

Martin also argued local authorities did have the capacity to collect the levy.

“The reason we’re moving this to revenue is because local authorities have not succeeded at all in terms of implementing the Derelict Sites Act as it was and some local authorities did,” he said.

“When you look at Limerick and others, you see that they had the capacity to do it, others just didn’t bother.”

Labour leader Ivana Bacik described the attempt to “pin responsibility for vacancy and dereliction on councils alone” as a “convenient distraction from years of government failure”.

“If it worked, this could be significant”, she conceded but continued: “It’s a half-measure delayed, diluted and arbitrarily deployed, initially only to urban areas with populations of 4,000 or more, as if dereliction didn’t affect small towns and villages”.

She said the Labour Party are calling for the introduction of compulsory sales orders “to force persistently vacant and derelict properties back into use”.

“This kind of charge of inaction, as if nothing’s happening, is just not true,” Martin countered and pointed again to the amounts that have been paid out under various grants.

He said the reason the derelict property tax is being transferred to revenue is because it has “a tendency to concentrate the mind a bit more” than local authorities, adding: “Bottom line, when people see revenue coming, I think behaviour will change.”