Local Fine Gael Councillor Eileen Mannion has backed Tánaiste Simon Harris’s call for stronger action on derelict properties, saying tackling dereliction is essential if Ireland is to address its housing shortage.
Cllr Mannion said she agreed with the Tánaiste. “We have derelict and vacant buildings right across our towns and villages that could be homes, and the powers to act already exist with the derelict sites levy. There are also grants available to bring these derelict properties back into use,” she said.
“The most important thing to understand about the tax is that its real value isn’t the money it raises, it’s the behaviour it changes. The goal is not to collect a tax. The goal is to make sitting on a derelict building the more expensive option, so that the owner is pushed to either renovate it, sell it, or hand it on to someone who will. A levy that’s actually working should see properties coming back into use and the bill falling away, not piling up year after year,” added Cllr Mannion.
“That’s exactly why it has to be applied consistently. A levy that owners know will never really be enforced changes nothing. One that is applied without fail changes everything, because it shifts the incentive. Where it’s properly used, it works.
“Every derelict building brought back into use is a home for a family and will enhance towns and villages right across Connemara. I want to see the council use every power available to it, treat the levy as a tool to change behaviour rather than as a tool to generate income and that is what I will be pushing for,” she concluded.
