Derelict Sites (Amendment) Bill 2022: Second Stage [Private Members]
Dail Éireann — 2026-01-15
============================================================

James Browne (FF), Wexford

I agree with Deputy Lawlor that these are a blight on our communities. There should be nowhere to hide for people who have properties they are letting go into dereliction. Not only that but there are areas, as the Deputy highlighted, where the law is overcomplicating the matter. Those areas need to be addressed one by one. It is unacceptable. It is antisocial behaviour. I am declaring a war on derelict sites. We are tackling it. The implementation of a new derelict property tax will help significantly address dereliction.
I understand Deputy Gould's proposals with this legislation but we are going way beyond that. I do not think increasing administration and reporting will be effective. As a number of Deputies pointed out, whatever the reason may be, local authorities have not been able to implement the existing legislation. The existing legislation is strong enough but they have not been able to do it. Bringing in the Revenue Commissioners with their power to tackle dereliction is the correct way to go about it, while providing significant carrots for people to purchase vacant and derelict properties and turn them back into homes, bringing life back to our town, village and city centres. We want people back living in our communities and that will be done by other positive measures we are bringing in or have brought in, such as the town centre first programme and the various grants - the urban regeneration and development fund, URDF, the rural regeneration and development fund, RRDF, and the town and village renewal scheme. We are putting money behind those positive projects and can see them in my county. Look at the transformation of New Ross town in recent years using all the grants approved by the Government through Government policy. We have seen it in many towns across the country. We are tackling it.
Deputy O'Reilly gets up every time with personalisation of politics - no substance, again and again and again. The usual from you, Deputy. Engage with the substance of the issues for once.

---

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/2026-01-15/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:30+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-01-15