Office of Public Works

6. Deputy Thomas Gould asked the Minister for Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation the number of new sites purchased by the OPW in each of the past five years. [73836/26]

The Office of Public Works has responsibility on behalf of the State for managing and maintaining a substantial and complex estate. This diverse portfolio includes office accommodation for all Government Departments, the property estate of An Garda Síochána and the properties of many State agencies. The portfolio also includes specialised spaces such as public offices, laboratories and cultural institutions, as well as warehouses, heritage properties, visitor centres and sites. As part of the management of the estate, the OPW is occasionally required to purchase property to respond to an expanded service provision or to take advantage of commercial opportunities. These purchases can be broadly broken down into a number of different categories, including properties that enhance the heritage portfolio, such as the recent purchase of land at Castletown House in Celbridge, County Kildare; add to wider urban regeneration developments, which includes the purchase of sites in Limerick and Dublin that are now seeing large-scale redevelopment projects; take advantage of strategic real estate purchases in the commercial office sector, which has included the purchase of a number of office buildings; and protect the integrity of the estate. In total, 24 properties and sites have been acquired to date since 2022, comprising two in 2022, five in 2023, four in 2024, nine in 2025 and four so far in 2026. A small number of property acquisitions are under way; however, these purchases have not yet been finalised. The issue of whether we buy, build or lease property is a complex matter and subject to a number of variables, including the availability of capital funding, the availability of sustainable buildings or sites, prevailing market conditions at the time and the urgency and the scale of the request. To give a recent example that the Deputy will be aware of, the OPW and the Department of foreign affairs are concluding work collaborating on the delivery of new office accommodation for the passport service in Cork. This project will see the passport office relocate from a poor-quality and outdated premises to a new, modern and energy-efficient location, in keeping with infrastructure guidelines. All viable options were considered to advance the purchase of this location.

The OPW spent more than €31 million last year nationally renting office space. In Cork, the OPW spent €20 million in rent in the past five years. Included in that is over €1.6 million on a probation and welfare office while the Probation Service in Cork owns an empty building. Does that make sense to the Minister of State? He raises the issue of the passport office, and to listen to him, it sounds great, but the OPW will spend hundreds of thousands of euro to rent the passport office. The lease is €635,000 a year. It started in January 2025. It will not open until the end of 2027. That is nearly €2 million spent renting an office that is closed. This is bonkers stuff. At the same time, that passport office will not have a printer and will spend €700,000 a year on maintenance and parking charges. It is crazy.

I understand what the Deputy is saying but, as I have outlined, the issue of whether we buy, build or lease property is a complex matter and subject to a number of variables, including the availability of capital funding, the availability of sustainable buildings and sites and prevailing market conditions. The money is not always available to build or to buy, as I outlined to him. We have always examined in detail everything we purchase, buy or lease. We work with the markets and different Departments to deliver the service for the people in Government buildings.

It is mind-boggling to people out there, after the Government drove families and workers out on strike last week, that now we are in here talking about the Government wasting millions of euro. The OPW in Cork alone has 14 empty properties. RTÉ Investigates found that the OPW has numerous properties on derelict sites registered right across the State on which it is not paying the derelict sites levies. Paying them is the law of the land under the Derelict Sites Act 1990. The OPW is breaking the law by not paying those levies. I will give one more example. Kilmainham Gaol brings in €1 million a year from visitors and people attending. That is brilliant. In Cork, we have an old prison, the old Cork detention barracks, and this Government is looking at knocking it. We could turn it into a tourist attraction like Kilmainham Gaol to bring people to Cork. The Government spent millions of euros getting the Thornton Hall site ready to build a prison. It put in the infrastructure, bought the land and everything else and now it wants to knock one of the most historic buildings in Cork to build two more prisons in the Glen. It is shocking.

The issue the Deputy has just raised with me is a matter for the Department of justice. He mentioned the people who were on the streets last week. I think he would acknowledge that the 300,000 people in the public service right across the country have to be accommodated. It is my job in government to deliver that accommodation for those people. The Deputy has outlined that a number of properties are vacant. I do not have a list of vacant properties in Cork that belong to the OPW. If the Deputy has one, I ask him to pass it on to me and I will have the properties examined. However, I assure him that what we are doing is delivering a service for the people of Ireland and for the public sector in particular.