Clare County Council claims some families are leaving properties vacant in the hope that family members who’ve emigrated will take up residence there once they’ve returned home.
It comes as the junior housing minister has accused some local authorities of being “too slow to take decisive action” on vacancy and dereliction.
Fine Gael Minister of State for Local Government and Planning John Cummins insists there’s “inconsistency” in how different local authorities are approaching the issues of vacancy and dereliction.
While he admits he’s been “impressed” by the proactivity of some, he’s spoken to some who he says are “simply not prioritising this issue to the extent needed”.
It comes in a week when the Housing Minister has declared a “war on dereliction” as new figures have revealed that 13 local authorities failed to use the Compulsory Purchase Order process to acquire any vacant sites last year.
Sixmilebridge Fine Gael Councillor John Crowe, who’s a member of Clare County Council’s Social Development Strategic Policy Committee says this is “very disappointing”.
In 2025 to date, Clare County Council has billed the derelict sites levy, which is a tax of 7% of the value of a property on the owner of a derelict site, on 25 separate sites.
This is up from nine across all of 2024.
The amount billed to site owners in respect of the levy this year is over €333,000 which is more than triple the figure for last year, but just under €45,000, or little over 10% of this, has been collected.
The local authority has also commenced the CPO process on 7 properties in the last month while five others are at vesting stage and lodged with Tailte Éireann.
Clare County Council Senior Executive Officer with responsibility for Land Activation, Derelict Sites and Property Management, Carmel Greene, says those “sitting on” vacant sites have plenty of options.
Listen to the full interview here
