Derelict Sites Dail Éireann — 2025-12-09 ============================================================ Thomas Gould (SF), Cork North-Central The Tánaiste and the Minister, Deputy Browne, have said that this tax will get more derelict sites turned into housing delivery, which I support. If housing delivery is not happening, the tax must hurt those who are abusing their communities. When I walk around a brilliant European city like Dublin, I look at the dereliction. It is the same in my own city of Cork. It drags the whole city and community down. I want to ask the Tánaiste a couple of things. Will the derelict sites levy that is collected in a local authority area be put back into that area to tackle dereliction locally? There is a job of work to tackle dereliction, to acquire these places through CPO and to take on these land hoarders. At this moment, if someone who has a derelict site paints it and can camouflage it, it is not considered derelict. I suggest that if someone has a derelict site that has been lying idle for years, even if it has a coat of paint, that is not good enough. If a site is not being used for housing, business or the community, it is derelict and the tax must apply. --- 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