Cabinet Committees
Dail Éireann — 2025-12-16
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Liam Quaide (SD), Cork East

One of the most infuriating parts of the housing crisis is the tens of thousands of properties that have been left idle and decaying throughout the country. Youghal's potential to be on a par with Kinsale for economic prosperity and tourism has been thwarted by the epic scale of dereliction that has been allowed to take place there over many years. Likewise, Castlemartyr and Midleton have many prime-location properties left like deserted husks where boutiques could be flourishing or community hubs or accommodation created. In Holland or Germany this would not be tolerated. Landlords would have to sell up or repurpose a vacant property within a reasonable period or face losing it. The Government's softly-softly approach to vacancy and dereliction is clearly not working, and our towns and villages are haunted by this policy failure. We need to see swift direct action by our local authorities with landlords who blight our streets with decaying properties and a much more urgent pursuit of derelict site levies. The collection of derelict site levies by Revenue is welcome, but why is the Government waiting until 2027 to implement this?

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2025-12-16/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:28+00:00
Sitting date: 2025-12-16