Local authorities’ work on ghost estates hinges on IBRC liquidation

Councils must wait until next year to find out how much they will get to finish ghost estates from the €30m owed to them by IBRC, which is undergoing a liquidation process.

The 25 local authorities with claims being considered by the IBRC special liquidator are unsecured creditors, meaning they will likely only receive a proportion of what is owed them from bonds when decisions are made, possibly in the first few months of 2016.

The details emerged in a Department of Environment, Community and Local Government report on progress in tackling the issue of unfinished housing developments. The 992 schemes that were unfinished at the start of this year have been reduced by more than one-third to 668, representing a 75% drop from almost 3,000 ghost estates in 2010.

The 324 developments are described as resolved, meaning that uncompleted construction, infrastructure work, or both have been finished.

However, the figures do not include all completed housing developments with outstanding maintenance issues, or issues around being taken in charge by local councils.

Paudie Coffey, Minister for Housing, Planning and Co-ordination of Construction 2020, said there has been solid progress again in 2015, as the reactivation of work on sites increases.

However, options on the future viability of unoccupied ghost estates will be explored by the department with the relevant councils and other stakeholders in cases where there appears to be little potential of work restarting or little chance of the developments becoming economically viable.

Over the past five years, €57m has been called in on bonds and other securities which developers are required to provide for use by councils in the event of an estate not being completed. The money has been used by local authorities to put in place infrastructure, such as footpaths, lighting and road surfacing on unfinished housing schemes, where planning conditions had required them to be provided as part of the works. Mr Coffey said work on just under 90 developments would remain to be resolved when works under a Special Resolution Fund are complete.

Mostly due to the sale or other disposal of assets, the number of unfinished developments over which Nama has security is down 79% from 229 to 47 in the past year. The reduction includes 31 of the 46 Nama-secured housing schemes in Co Cork in December 2014, 16 out of 24 in Dublin, all 11 in Meath and all six in Kildare.