Irish Examiner View: Numbers don’t add up when it comes to derelict properties

The Derelict Ireland lobby group claim there are seven times more derelict sites in Cork than are contained in Cork City Council’s register

A derelict site on Ballyhooley Rd, Cork. Picture: Denis Minihane

You have to admire the persistence of the Derelict Ireland lobby group and its disinclination to accept official numbers at face value, a quality that should commend itself to citizens everywhere.

Campaigners say they have identified 700 derelict properties within a 2km radius of Cork City centre, a figure which is seven times more than the assessment on Cork City Council’s derelict sites register. 

Frank O’Connor, who along with Jude Sherry, has been highlighting the scourge of dereliction blighting towns and cities across Ireland, said the actual figure in Cork is much, much higher than official figures suggest. Picture: Frank O'Connor and Jude Sherry

While the judgements made by local authority officials may be subject to, and constrained by, more narrow legal definitions, a group spokesman, Frank O’Connor, says: “We are happy that what we have selected meets the definition of derelict.”

Production by the group of a This is Derelict Ireland report led to an invitation to address the Oireachtas joint committee on housing, local government and heritage on urban regeneration last December.

It is due to publish its own commentary shortly, which campaigners hope will lead to the application of “compulsory rental orders” to vacant or derelict sites.

They say that such action would be “transformative". 

There are many areas of life that need transformation. Housing is certainly one.