Council to seek more powers to buy derelict sites

Cork City Council will write to the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage to request the addition of compulsory sales orders and compulsory rental orders to the powers available to local authorities.

The motion, proposed by Green Party Councillor Honore Kamegni, said that this “would assist in strengthening progress restoring derelict buildings to active use”. The motion also mandated the council to publish its derelict sites register as a Geographic Information System (GIS) map.

As part of the mapping process, the council is to collaborate with dereliction activists Jude Sherry and Frank O’Connor.

In 2025, Cork City Council issued nine notices of intention to acquire derelict properties/sites. Of the nine notices issues, seven were for properties/sites which were on the Derelict Sites Register at the time of notice.

Sherry and O’Connor have been active since 2020, maintaining a database of derelict sites around Ireland. The council is to fill in discrepancies in its own derelict sites register with reference to the register kept by Sherry and O’Connor. There are still discrepancies between both databases.

“We released our report ‘This is #DerelictIreland’ in March 2021, based on a case study of 340 properties in Cork city. It is now nearly five years since we reported these properties to Cork City Council, many of which are still not registered,” they said.

In December last year, the Cork Independent reported that Cork City Council is currently owed over €5 million in uncollected derelict site levies. There are currently 158 properties on the derelict sites levy maintained by Cork City Council.

Sherry and O’Connor said that the council needs “better collection of the 7% levies through registering it as a charge on the properties and through the courts if necessary”, to “follow their own policy of CPOing derelict properties after they have been registered for over two years”, and “to remove the current Rates Abatement Scheme for long-term vacant commercial spaces”.

The Rates Abatement Scheme is a 40% reduction in commercial rates available if a property is vacant and available to let, or undergoing significant renovation works.

The article was produced with the support of the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme funded by Coimisiún na Meán.