Jude Sherry

Hi, Matt.

Yeah, great.

Well, good to chat to you again today.

Unfortunately, always about the same challenges we have.

Yeah, I think it's a challenge lots of councils have across the country.

So yesterday, actually, me and Frank went for a walk around the lock in Cork.

And there's a number of properties close to the lock that were bought by the Cork City Council in 2018-17.

And they've been left derelict for a long time after that.

And now they're finally getting done up, but they're still not

quite yet, but they are getting there.

But I think this shows overall from the councils, we've had the Derelict Sites Act for 36 years.

They're only starting to enforce it now after we started campaigning nearly six years ago at this stage for it.

So it's good to see action happening.

And things like CPOs, they're getting more used to using them, getting better at using them.

But what happens to them when they CPO is indeed a challenge.

And I think a big challenge here is that they don't have direct staff within the council to do up buildings.

So last November, actually, me and Frank were up at the Oireachtas building.

And there, at the same time as us, there was, I think it was Roscommon Council, were talking about bringing their own voids back into use.

And they were saying that if they had direct staff working for them, that would reduce their cost by about 25% they were averaging.

help them turn around faking and derelict properties quicker and more flexible.