2025-12-09

9. Deputy Thomas Gould asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Finance if he has met with the Revenue Commissioners to discuss the new derelict sites tax. [63073/25]

Will the Tánaiste update the House on whether he has met the Revenue Commissioners to discuss the new derelict sites tax? Will he consider starting the collection of the derelict sites tax on 1 January 2026 or early 2026, and not 2027?

I thank the Deputy. I have heard him speak in this House passionately about lots of things, including the issue of dereliction in recent times. Dereliction during a housing emergency is a particular challenge as something that should be almost socially unacceptable. We have an emergency. All of us recognise that. We have different views on how best to tackle it, but tackling dereliction needs to be an important part of that. I have to be honest, as I was during earlier question replies. There is quite a significant piece of work to do to move from a derelict levy collected by the local authorities - I am not in any way having a go at them; they do a good job - to a consistent national tax collected by the Revenue Commissioners. The benefit of announcing the tax in the budget a couple of months ago was that we all want this tax to act effectively as something to change behaviour. We are not actually looking for this tax to collect loads of money; we are looking for it to send out a very clear message that if you are sitting on a derelict property in a housing emergency, we are going to tax you. It is not just that we are going to tax you; it is also that Revenue will collect the tax. People know Revenue is very good at collecting tax. That there is a benefit in making it very clear - as my predecessor, Pascal Donohoe, did - that there will be a derelict tax that will be collected not by the local authorities but by the Revenue Commissioners is important. We will have to do quite a few things, being honest, to get this ready. I have spoken briefly to the chairman of the Revenue Commissioners on this matter, and I will be speaking to him more substantively soon, but I know Revenue is gearing up for this. My officials have had lots of significant engagement with Revenue. The big piece of work to be done here is that we will have to legislate in this House for it and we plan on doing that in 2026. I will bring forward legislation and I look forward to debating the design and structure of that tax then. We have not set a rate for it. I will say in the House this evening that it certainly will not be lower than the 7% that is currently charged as the dereliction levy. The local authorities have a piece of work to do as well in mapping out and identifying all of the derelict properties and ensuring that is done in a consistent manner regardless of whether one lives in Cork or Wicklow. Otherwise the tax would not be sound, quite frankly. There is a big body of work to be done. I want to see the tax introduced as quickly as possible, but we will not be in a position to collect this tax in 2026. I would be misleading if I suggested otherwise but we can get a lot done in 2026.

The Revenue Commissioners taking over the collection of the derelict sites levy is one thing we can support. It is something Sinn Féin has been advocating for years. My worry now is this: for how long more will land hoarders and speculators who are sitting on sites be able to get away with it? Cork City Council is one of the best local authorities at implementing the levy but it is still only collecting one third of it. Cork City Council has €5 million outstanding. There are millions of euro outstanding while speculators see the value of their properties go up and destroy communities at the same time. Will the Tánaiste commit that the levy will come into place on 1 January 2027 at the very latest? Local authorities have derelict sites registers at the moment, but they are not complete. I agree with the Tánaiste on that. There is a lot of work to do but there are registers there. Can we start with the people who are, in most cases, the worst offenders?

I enjoy these rare moments of agreement between Deputy Gould and me. He often shouts at me from the other side of the House and the odd time I shout back as well. As we come up to the Christmas period, it is nice to have a rare moment of harmony so let us cherish that. We are having this rare moment of harmony because we both recognise that dereliction is a real scourge. Deputy Nash made this point earlier from a public health point of view, a safety point of view and the point of view of a sense of community, but the housing emergency also puts an acuity on it. I want to do this as quickly as possible. I do not want to mislead the Deputy or the House on it. I take the Deputy's point and accept his bona fides when he asks if we can start with a certain group. The truth is that once we introduce a national tax, we cannot start anywhere; we have to start everywhere. It is no different with the movement from the current levy to the new tax. It has to be consistent and applied without fear or favour, no matter where the property is located in Ireland and no matter which local authority area is involved at present. This is a big body of work for the local authorities. I will help and support them, as will the Government, in undertaking this. I will visit Cork City Council, on the invitation of its chief executive, in January. I am sure we will have a chance to discuss dereliction and other issues. We will do this as quickly as possibly but the plan is to legislate in 2026 and we can tease through all of these issues in the course of the legislation.

The Tánaiste and the Minister, Deputy Browne, have said that this tax will get more derelict sites turned into housing delivery, which I support. If housing delivery is not happening, the tax must hurt those who are abusing their communities. When I walk around a brilliant European city like Dublin, I look at the dereliction. It is the same in my own city of Cork. It drags the whole city and community down. I want to ask the Tánaiste a couple of things. Will the derelict sites levy that is collected in a local authority area be put back into that area to tackle dereliction locally? There is a job of work to tackle dereliction, to acquire these places through CPO and to take on these land hoarders. At this moment, if someone who has a derelict site paints it and can camouflage it, it is not considered derelict. I suggest that if someone has a derelict site that has been lying idle for years, even if it has a coat of paint, that is not good enough. If a site is not being used for housing, business or the community, it is derelict and the tax must apply.

Deputy Conway-Walsh has a supplementary question.

In parallel to this, it is very important to look at derelict sites that are owned by local authorities. The Tánaiste says this is a big job of work for them, and it absolutely is, but it is critical that we cannot be taxing someone on one side of the street when the local authority has a huge derelict site on the other side of the street and is doing nothing about it. I do not necessarily blame the local authorities. They need to work with the centre. I respect that the Tánaiste is not the Minister for housing, but he is the Tánaiste. That has to be done because even his own councillors on Mayo County Council were raising this issue yesterday. Councillor Ger Deere was raising this in respect of Castlebar. That situation is not tolerable either. There needs to be a fast-tracking of the local authorities' derelict sites to make them into accommodation that can be used in towns. There is also the unsightliness of these sites at a time when we are trying to do urban renewal and make these towns look attractive.

The point Deputy Gould makes about what is derelict, and getting all of that right and underpinning it in legislation, is exactly what we will have to do when we are bringing the legislation through this House. The Deputy is right when he says that it cannot be just a lick of paint or somebody pretending to resolve the dereliction. We all have to be serious about this. We can debate the structure and composition of the tax - all that sort of stuff, including some of the questions the Deputy asked - during the course of the debates on the legislation. We all agree that we do not want this tax to be something that brings in loads of money. We want it to be something that changes behaviour. Quite frankly, we want the financial penalty of having to pay the tax to be something that moves the dial. That is the aim. It is a bit like the residential zoned land tax we were discussing earlier. I am kind of pleased we held our nerve, as a Government and as an Oireachtas, in relation to the residential zoned land tax. There were teething issues. We all heard from farmers with legitimate issues. The fundamental idea is that it is not for farmers, who are not landlords at all. If someone is sitting on land and hoarding it and it is in a residential zone, they are meant to be building houses on it. Their options are to build houses on the land, sell the land to someone else who will build houses on it, or pay a tax. There is a housing emergency. The residential zoned land tax is in place. We are moving from a levy which is inconsistent, and even the best local authorities have challenges in collecting it, to a tax collected by the Revenue Commissioners.