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BOARDED-UP HOUSES and crumbling buildings are a common feature of towns and cities across Ireland.
Derelict buildings contribute significantly to Ireland’s housing crisis, and bringing them back into use is one of the Government’s strategies for addressing social housing shortfalls and getting more homes on the market.
Last month, the compulsory purchase order (CPO) process commenced for just three properties in two council areas.
Under laws introduced in 1990, every local council keeps a Derelict Sites Register to encourage owners to bring vacant houses and land into use through the imposition of an annual levy of 7% of the property’s market value, which applies until the site is no longer derelict.
When someone objects to a local authority’s attempt to obtain a property via the CPO process, the council can make an application to An Coimisiún Pleanála to do so.
The Housing Act also allows local authorities to acquire vacant homes via CPO, which they also must apply to do via the commission.
The process is similar to making a planning application, and the board weighs up submissions from the council and the owner of the land before deciding whether a site can be subject to a CPO.
The number of properties that councils try to CPO via the commission every month is relatively small.
The Journal has been keeping track of the vacant and derelict properties that councils have sought to acquire in previous months.
On 12 November, Clare County Council submitted an application under the Compulsory Acquisition Derelict Site Act to CPO a two-storey property on Main Street in Tulla, a small market town in Co Clare.
No documents were submitted as part of the application, so there is little information available about the property, its owner, or why the council wants to CPO the building.
In 2024, an application was submitted by a company called TSM Ventures Limited to build a coffee shop, take-away and four residential apartments on the site, which was granted permission.
The CPO case is due to be decided by 20 April next year.
On 18 November, Clare County Council sought to CPO a two-storey end-of-terrace building at number 1 Erin Street in Kilkee.
According to an old county development plan, the property used to be home to the Erin Arms hotel; the plan says the property has been vacant for over 40 years, though Google Street View images show its exterior was being maintained as recently as 2009.
The same report said the council previously had to remove a dangerous building on the site and re-roof a two-storey building.
Planning records show that the site has been the subject of numerous planning applications over the years, which included plans in the early 2000s to demolish the site and build a new hotel (it is not clear whether these plans were granted or refused).
The council previously sought to acquire earlier this year, but was refused by the commission, which decided that its owner should be given more time to bring the building out of dereliction.
In a report at the time, a council inspector said that windows and doors on the building were boarded up, that there are extensive holes in the roof, which has a number of missing and loose slates, that the site features loose cables, and that a single storey section of the building has been partially demolished.
The report named the owner of the site as Patrick Halpin, who objected to the original CPO application on a number of grounds, including that the building had the potential to be retained and refurbished.
Halpin also told the council that he was not the owner of the property from 2012 to February 2024 – during which time the building was deemed derelict and at one time listed as a dangerous structure – as it was in the hands of receivers.
He said he would attempt to render the building non-derelict and carry out repairs to it, though a council inspector said this had not happened by the end of January this year.
The Journal contacted Clare County Council for information about the latest effort to CPO the site, but received no response by the time of publication.
A decision by the commission is due by 23 April next year.
On 20 November, Cavan County Council submitted an application to CPO a two-storey mid-terrace property at 3 Rossa Place in Cavan Town.
Little information is available about the site; no planning applications have ever been submitted to develop it, and no inspection report by Cavan County Council was included in the local authority’s application to An Coimisiún Pleanála.
The Journal contacted Cavan County Council for information about the site and why the local authority was seeking to CPO it, but no response was received by the time of publication.
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