Ceisteanna ar Pholasaí nó ar Reachtaíocht - Questions on Policy or Legislation
Dail Éireann — 2022-03-03
============================================================

Darragh O'Brien (FF), Dublin Fingal

I thank Deputy Fitzpatrick for his question. The Government is absolutely committed to tackling the scourge that is vacancy and bringing empty properties back into use. The planning regulations were changed just a couple of weeks ago to broaden further the exemption on commercial properties being converted to residential use. The Minister of State, Deputy Peter Burke, and I will bring forward, in relation to town centre first, the Croí Cónaithe towns and villages fund. That will provide people with a grant to bring empty homes back into use as long as they live in and own them. Furthermore, we are bringing forward a co-ordinated compulsory purchase order scheme managed by the Housing Agency on behalf of local authorities such as Louth County Council, which had previously been quite successful in that area - other local authorities, not so much. We will co-ordinate compulsory purchase orders in respect of more than 2,500 properties. There is a particular issue in Drogheda on which we are working with the local authority, but we will bring forward our Croí Cónaithe cities fund to have brownfield site development in our cities.

---

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/2022-03-03/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:50:13+00:00
Sitting date: 2022-03-03