Sinn Féin promises increased vacant sites 'tax with teeth' to rejuvenate Cork City

The party also proposes greater compulsory purchase powers as part of its rejuvenation plan for the city

(Left to right) Thomas Gould, Joe Lynch, Michelle Cowhey Shahid and Donnchadh O Laoghaire at the launch of Sinn Fein's blueprint for Cork city centre.

Sinn Féin has proposed an increased vacant sites “tax with teeth” and greater compulsory purchase powers as part of its rejuvenation plan for Cork City.

If elected to government, it said it would increase the vacant sites tax, make Revenue responsible for collecting the derelict sites tax, reform the compulsory purchase order (CPO) process, amend planning laws to help tackle vacancy and dereliction, and make over-the-shop residential development viable.

The city blueprint was unveiled on Tuesday against the backdrop of the city’s ‘poster-boys of dereliction’, the long-time derelict properties on North Main Street, by the party's city-based candidates, TDs Thomas Gould and Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire, Cllr Joe Lynch and Michelle Cowhey Shahid.

“We believe that dereliction and vacancy through the main spine of the city, along North Main Street and Barrack Street particularly, is having a detrimental impact on the rejuvenation of the area post-covid,” they said.

The plan sets out how a range of Sinn Féin’s national policy proposals could help rejuvenate Cork City, which it said has a commercial vacancy rate of around 13.6% — equivalent to around 745 vacant commercial properties across the city — and which has seen 48 food and accommodation businesses close in the 12 months to June 2024.

The plan includes setting the vacant sites tax at 7% in year one, and increasing it by 50% for each year the site was left vacant. 

The plan says:

This would be a tax with teeth that would mean those who speculate in our city are penalised properly.

The current CPO process is based on legislation passed before the foundation of the State and is universally recognised as too slow and too expensive, the plan says, and the introduction of 'existing use value’ CPOs would make it easier for local authorities and others to acquire vacant and derelict homes and commercial properties to bring them back into use.

The party plans to introduce a one-stop-shop to help drive residential development in over-the-shop spaces and other commercial premises, and it would support the creation of a forum to promote meanwhile use of vacant space — helping to connect social enterprises and community groups with those in possession of vacant commercial buildings.

The plan also includes a compact site development support grant to bring compact urban sites into use as homes and a new CPO for owners who refuse to engage.

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It also pledges to address the garda shortage in Cork City, claiming that the city has 50 fewer gardaí based in Anglesea Street and the Bridewell than it did four years ago.

“In Cork City, over the last four years, more than two gardaí left the force for every single Garda that was assigned to the city,” it says.

“Only 13 probationer gardaí have been assigned to Anglesea Street. Of the 126 gardaí who came out of Templemore in 2022, just one came to Cork. Of the 237 new gardaí in part of 2023, only four were to be allocated to Cork.”