Ceisteanna ar Pholasaí nó ar Reachtaíocht - Questions on Policy or Legislation
Dail Éireann — 2026-01-29
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Simon Harris (FG), Wicklow

We also do not need to babysit the local authorities. They need to get on and do their job. We have given them all vacancy officers and we have funded them. Hard-pressed taxpayers in this country have funded posts for local authorities to tackle dereliction. It utterly unacceptable that it would exist at the scale it does, particularly in the context of what the Deputy outlined with regard to his county of Mayo. We are so peeved with local authorities in terms of where they are at regarding the derelict sites levy that we are taking it off them and giving it to Revenue in order that it will be dealt with properly. That is why, as Minister for Finance, I intend to introduce a derelict levy tax. I will get Revenue to collect this because it will do it right. It astonishes me, at a time when dereliction could bring in, through the levy, more money for local authorities to deliver public services and act as a disincentive to dereliction, that so many of them have done so little in respect of this matter. They will write me letters and pass motions. They should get on with the job. I do not have any confidence that they are going to do it right, so we are going to legislate, take it off them and do it through Revenue.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-01-29/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:34+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-01-29