The Last Word with Matt Cooper
More Than 30 Council Bought Vacant Properties Lying Neglected
11 May 2026
Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
In Ireland, nothing gets us talking like lions. Tea? Small talk. Well, Jimmy, shock on weather we're having. Big talk. Even I could have played county. Office talk.
I'm MIA in the AM, but I'll circle back on the KPIs.
Real talk.
Milk before tea. Should be a criminal offence.
You could say we talk too much, but the truth is, we don't talk nearly enough. Lions puts the talk into tea.
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Now what's the point of state via one of its councils buying properties which are vacant or in danger of becoming derelict and then doing nothing with them? Becoming so derelict, deteriorating so much to the point of collapse. Well, we've two guests with us.
In a moment, we'll talk to Jude Sherry, founder and director of Inish, who we've spoken to many times over the years on this programme about the issues of dereliction and vacant houses all around the country. But first, Dahi Doolan, as Sinn Féin Dublin City Councillor for Ballyfermot and Drimna, and as a member of the DCC Housing Committee.
Can you tell us a little bit more about the story which first appeared in the Irish Times today?
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Chapter 2: What are the current challenges with council-owned derelict properties?
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.
And nobody in the private world, nobody in the private sector will have a magic wand to sort any of that out. We do. We will be focusing on them because We want to make sure Dublin is living and vibrant and these communities have people living in these houses and that's what we intend to do.
That's what I'm focused on doing and that's what I'm sure that we'll be able to do in the not too distant future.
Jude Sherry, as a founder and director of a niche, you're living in Cork. I've spoken to you about this issue previously. This is not just a Dublin issue, is it, of councils taking houses into ownership or pieces of land and doing nothing with them?
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.
Sorry Jude, can I just check with you, so does that mean at the moment that what happens with the councils is they put these properties out to tender to private builders to do a job on them, to bring them back into use for the council to then rent to social housing tenants?
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Chapter 3: How many derelict properties has Dublin City Council purchased?
I don't know, Matt, either, why it takes that long. It's a ridiculous amount of time. Within that time, the properties aren't secured. As in the roof, there's still leaks getting in. So the longer you leave it, and we've seen that with many properties up in Dublin and in Cork and other areas around the country, is that by the time they go through the CPO process...
And by the time they get ownership, then they find out, or by the time they go to do the work, could be years later, they find out the properties are in a worse state, which will cost them even more. And then they end up having to look at buying.
Okay, let me go back to Dolly Doolin. Have you been able to find out why it takes so long?
Well, the CPO process itself is very, very, very cumbersome. And if you go through the courts, you're open to appeal. Sometimes the people who own the property might charge you way above the market cost. So it's a very cumbersome tool. Some people think a CPO, you walk into a building and you own it. You don't. We have to go through a very, very long process through the courts.
And it's open to appeal because what you're trying to do is you're going to force the owner to sell it to you. But I think there's a very important point here is the lack of direct labour. Procurement is strangling local authorities, both in the renovating, maintaining and building property, Dublin City Council properties. It's hugely cumbersome, made worse because of the procurement process.
It's that level of bureaucracy from the customs house and the Department of Environment is strangling any initiative in Dublin City Council. And it sounds like other local authorities as well. For us to build any more than one unit, we go to a very labour-intensive procurement process.
And I think if that could be trimmed back, also allow us to employ people for direct labour, again, Ron having to go for tendering processes all the time. It is very, very slow and frustrating. And that's why I want to bring that focus and energy to this working group to try and turn this around. Ron was pointing at the faults and the flaws. I want to point at the solutions.
I'm looking at some of the images here, some of the properties. There's literally nothing on the inside. The roof is gone. The floors are gone. And in some cases, I'd be advocating, should we just demolish and rebuild? Should we demolish and put another type of housing onto those sites?
And let's focus on the solutions and what we can do and turn this dereliction into thriving homes to meet the needs of people on our housing list, language and emergency accommodation, and those in the transfer list. Let's turn them around and let's be solution focused.
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Chapter 4: What strategies are being implemented to address property dereliction?
where if you use it or lose it type approach, that if you've been shown not to use a property for a certain period of time, that you're compelled to sell it to the highest bidder, public or private. Has that worked in other locations outside of Ireland?
Yeah, there's a number of other European countries, Matt, that have similar compulsory sales orders.
spain has it and england have it as well that if a property is particularly derelict and not safe the councils go in make it safe and they don't necessarily do any you know put new windows or make it any you know finish it to any decent level but they make it safe and then they put it up for auction and the councils keep the cost of making the building safe and whatever's left over goes to the owner then so that's
for homes both in England and Spain. And then what Scotland have is they can pull through sales orders for kind of more commercial buildings, and that's more for community groups to buy commercial buildings for community uses.
And so it's slightly different to the homes, but it's still a similar approach for buildings that aren't being used, especially if you think heritage buildings and town centre buildings for community use could make a huge difference, ones that aren't suitable for converting into homes. So both But yeah, there's lots of examples across Europe of countries using this approach.
Thank you very much for that. Dolly Doolan is the Sinn Féin Dublin City Councillor for a Bali firm at DRIMNA, member of the Dublin City Council Housing Committee.
And that was Jude Sherry, founder and director of Enish.
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