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.