Councils attempt to buy only 240 vacant houses since 2011

Local authorities are coming in for criticism for failing to buy up derelict or vacant houses.

County Councils have the power to take land or property by Compulsory Purchase Order (CPO) if it is deemed to be for the common good.

However, it is being reported that just 240 attempts to do so have been made by county councils in the past seven years.

Fianna Fáil's housing spokesman Darragh O'Brien said it "doesn't make sense" in the middle of a housing crisis as he referred to a report from the Central Statistic Office which showed there are 184,000 vacant properties in the country.

Mr O'Brien said: "We need to get to grips with the housing crisis by building more units and getting the most out of the existing housing stock. That's a given.

"However, the poor usage by local authorities of their CPO powers compared to the high vacancy rates across our cities just doesn't make sense."

Fianna Fáil have made Freedom of Information requests and they show that CPOs are rarely used.

Dublin City Council has requested just 25 houses since 2011 while Dún Laoghaire Rathdown has only attempted to apply a CPO to one property, according to the Irish Independent

Louth County Council has the best record, applying for 141 houses at a total cost of more than €1.5m.

A spokesman for Housing Minister Eoghan Murphy said it was "disingenuous" for Fianna Fáil to use the figures, saying they were "recorded at a single point in time" and included houses for sale or for rent, or where the owner was away.