Daithí Doolan

Yes, the story

Dublin City Council buys up properties that are deemed in dereliction.

And since 2017, they've bought 112 in total and turned 77 back into social housing, which is ideal because it meets both the challenges for housing in the city, but also gives the whole community a lift.

Unfortunately, a number of the properties outstanding

right across the city, Northwold, Fibsborough, Drumcondra, Chapel Izzet, Walkingstown, etc.

There's a number of properties there that are deemed very, very difficult to try and renovate.

So today we had a full report at the Housing SBC and I'm glad to say that we've put a working group together to focus and prioritise on tackling this dereliction and ensuring that those properties don't stay a day too long in dereliction.

Because not only does that have a negative impact on meeting our housing targets in the city,

but it also has a wider impact on communities.

I saw them yesterday in Drumcondra where there's a number of properties lying derelict for years and it drags the whole community down.

It affects the properties on either side and also sometimes becomes a magnet for antisocial behaviour or illegal dumping and no community should have to live with that.

so I spoke to it very strongly today I said I don't want these sold back to the private market from where they came from because the dereliction will only deepen a spiral it is really up to us the folks on each property and make sure we turn them around as quickly as possible or turn them into another asset or resource in the community to ensure that the city benefits we cannot afford to allow any properties lie derelict in the city this is a wonderful city and it can even be better again if we manage to bring the focus that I think we can bring

from this working group.

I've contacted the manager, I've contacted the chair of the Housing SVC this afternoon, asking for the committee to be set up, the working group to be set up as quickly as possible to focus on this really, really important issue.

with them it's very simple these properties were in the hands of the private sector private developers builders etc and they chose or didn't do anything with them so handing them back to where the problem started is only creating a circle of dereliction yeah but the city council hasn't actually used but with all due respect it was 112 bought 77 are back

with families and people living in them which is ideal that would probably wouldn't have happened if city council hadn't stepped in so we're dealing with the rest of them and i firmly believe that we can turn this around with the right focus that we will bring as a working group i am going to work tirelessly to make sure the empty properties in chapel lizard walk and so on we have that why why hasn't the city council done something with them prior to this story on

Well, there isn't a one-size-fits-all.

Many of them are in very, very poor states, and they may require to be demolished and rebuilt, demolished and other units built in there.

Some of them have a problem.

The ones I visited yesterday in Drumcondra, there's a river running right under them, so that's hugely complicated.