Derelict Sites Dail Éireann — 2025-12-09 ============================================================ Simon Harris (FG), Wicklow I thank the Deputy. I have heard him speak in this House passionately about lots of things, including the issue of dereliction in recent times. Dereliction during a housing emergency is a particular challenge as something that should be almost socially unacceptable. We have an emergency. All of us recognise that. We have different views on how best to tackle it, but tackling dereliction needs to be an important part of that. I have to be honest, as I was during earlier question replies. There is quite a significant piece of work to do to move from a derelict levy collected by the local authorities - I am not in any way having a go at them; they do a good job - to a consistent national tax collected by the Revenue Commissioners. The benefit of announcing the tax in the budget a couple of months ago was that we all want this tax to act effectively as something to change behaviour. We are not actually looking for this tax to collect loads of money; we are looking for it to send out a very clear message that if you are sitting on a derelict property in a housing emergency, we are going to tax you. It is not just that we are going to tax you; it is also that Revenue will collect the tax. People know Revenue is very good at collecting tax. That there is a benefit in making it very clear - as my predecessor, Pascal Donohoe, did - that there will be a derelict tax that will be collected not by the local authorities but by the Revenue Commissioners is important. We will have to do quite a few things, being honest, to get this ready. I have spoken briefly to the chairman of the Revenue Commissioners on this matter, and I will be speaking to him more substantively soon, but I know Revenue is gearing up for this. My officials have had lots of significant engagement with Revenue. The big piece of work to be done here is that we will have to legislate in this House for it and we plan on doing that in 2026. I will bring forward legislation and I look forward to debating the design and structure of that tax then. We have not set a rate for it. I will say in the House this evening that it certainly will not be lower than the 7% that is currently charged as the dereliction levy. The local authorities have a piece of work to do as well in mapping out and identifying all of the derelict properties and ensuring that is done in a consistent manner regardless of whether one lives in Cork or Wicklow. Otherwise the tax would not be sound, quite frankly. There is a big body of work to be done. I want to see the tax introduced as quickly as possible, but we will not be in a position to collect this tax in 2026. I would be misleading if I suggested otherwise but we can get a lot done in 2026. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2025-12-09/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:26+00:00 Sitting date: 2025-12-09