Cork County Council collects just €10,000 out of a possible €320,000 in dereliction charges

One councillor said: “We’ve used a lot of the carrot, now we need to use the stick.”

Three derelict buildings, one of which was the former fire station, in Fermoy, Co. Cork. Photo: Denis Minihane

Cork County Council officials have been told “to stop using the carrot and get out the stick” after it emerged they managed to collect less than €10,000 levied against the owners of derelict properties, which have a combined estimated value of €20m.

Under national legislation, local authorities are entitled to collect an annual 7% levy per annum on the market value of such sites. The penalties are designed to encourage owners to put their properties back into use. However, the council has admitted it has managed to collect just €9,750 in levies.

Initially, the county council issued levies totalling €660,025 on property owners. However, with the expansion of the city boundary, a number of these properties then fell within the city and a total levy of €338,550 was transferred to City Hall for collection.

That left the county council with the remainder to collect. However, a number of successful appeals against these levies were made to An Bord Pleanála, amounting in total to €128,250. The collection of these then had to be cancelled. Two further levies are currently under appeal to An Bord Pleanála.

The total outstanding levies to be collected by Cork County Council amount to €183,700. The information was provided by officials following a query from Fianna Fáil councillor Deirdre O’Brien. She described the levy collection rate as “appallingly poor.” 

Ms O’Brien said:

We have (derelict) properties with an estimated value of €20m on our books and we have a seriously growing number of homeless people. We need to do something about this.

Fianna Fáil councillor Seamus McGrath was also taken aback by the low collection rate.

“It seems an extraordinarily low amount in terms of the size of our county. There needs to be adequate enforcement (of collection). The critical thing is that we collect what’s owed,” Mr McGrath said.

Several council officials have said in recent months that they find it more productive to liaise with derelict site owners rather than slapping levies on them straight away.

“We’ve used a lot of the carrot, now we need to use the stick,” Fine Gael councillor Kay Dawson said.

Valerie O’Sullivan, the county council’s assistant chief executive, said the local authority has embarked on a detailed survey throughout the whole county to draw up a list of every vacant building and site.

She said this information would be used to identify the potential for building accommodation and that chief executive, Tim Lucey, is likely to issue an interim report on this to councillors before the summer.