Tackling dereliction depends on councils having 'fire in their bellies'
Long-time vacancy and dereliction campaigners have given a positive if cautious welcome to Housing Minister Darragh O'Brien's €150m injection into the Urban Regeneration and Development Fund for local authorities to tackle vacant and derelict buildings in their areas. File picture: Larry Cummins
Tackling dereliction now depends on whether local authorities "have fire in the bellies" to get to grips with it, after a €150m national fund was provided to tackle the scourge.
Long-time vacancy and dereliction campaigners have given a positive if cautious welcome to Housing Minister Darragh O'Brien's €150m injection into the Urban Regeneration and Development Fund for local authorities to tackle vacant and derelict buildings in their areas.
It means councils will have funds to identify buildings in their communities that are vacant, buy them, and do them up. It applies to homes and commercial properties.
Once the newly restored building is sold or rented, the money generated will then be put back into the €150m fund, allowing councils to be able to keep tackling the problem without being financially on the hook themselves.
Chief executive of Hardware Association Ireland Martin Markey told the the €150m fund was not a panacea to solve the dereliction problem but was a significant step towards it.
"A lot of the support from central government and a lot of the regulatory stuff is now in place. They've also put in place vacant homes officers in each of the local authorities around the country. Not only that but there is a whole section now headed by a principal officer in the Department of Housing.
"The vacant homes tax is nowhere near where we would like it to be, but it is what it is and it remains to be seen how effective it's going to be. It depends on the local authorities, to what extent they get behind the structures now in place," he said.
Hardware Association Ireland, the representative body for hardware and DIY retailers, builders’ merchants, distributors, and manufacturers, has long pushed for dereliction and vacancy to be tackled, meeting with the Department of Housing for years to urge it to introduce effective measures.
According to Central Statistics Office data this week, more than 4% of homes in Ireland are currently vacant.
National vacancy rate from metered electricity consumption was 4.3% in Q4 2021https://t.co/EaPPX2CcG3#CSOIreland #Ireland #Dwellings #VacantDwellings #VacancyRate #MeteredElectricity #ElectricityConsumption pic.twitter.com/iT0q5riUTr
— Central Statistics Office Ireland (@CSOIreland) January 31, 2023
There must be "fire in the bellies" within local councils to identify derelict properties and bring them back into use, Mr Markey said.
He said parts of Cork were "shamefully" blighted with dereliction despite having one of the most culturally rich buildings in the country.
Tackling vacancy and dereliction is going to be similar to the cultural change needed towards recycling electrical goods, he said.
"Two decades ago, you could see fridges and other household appliances discarded on the roadside or by rivers, and as a nation, we collectively shrugged our shoulders and largely accepted it as a norm. The introduction of the EU's Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive in 2003 was a major turning point, and today we would no longer accept such behaviour.
"Hopefully it will not take 20 years, but this can be the impetus to tackle dereliction, as well as the grants being offered to private citizens."
To incentivise people to take on empty properties, the Vacant Property Refurbishment Grant was launched last year. It provides up to €30,000 in grants if someone wants to restore a vacant property to live in as their main home.
If a property is derelict, that grant rises to €50,000. This is with up to nearly €27,000 in further separate grants potentially available from the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland.
