Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 19 December 2013
217. Deputy Terence Flanagan asked the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government when he expects to have resolved all outstanding issues with ghost estates; his plans regarding demolishing those which are uninhabitable; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [54948/13]
View answerI expect to continue to make significant progress in 2014 in addressing the legacy issue of unfinished housing developments. I chair a National Co-ordinating Committee, which was established as a response to the report of the advisory group on unfinished housing developments and which has harnessed the expertise and goodwill of the construction and banking sectors, local authorities, residents representatives and NAMA to ensure that significant progress has been made since its establishment. Local authorities are continuing to pursue developers and others to comply with their obligations under planning regulations.
Predominantly developer/funder/receiver funded site resolution processes will remain the main vehicle to tackle unfinished developments. 553 developments have been brought to a resolution point in this way over the past 12 months alone. I expect that such processes will continue to make significant inroads into the remaining 992 inhabited unfinished developments. Additionally, I have secured a Special Resolution Fund of €10 million in 2014 to address the completion of infrastructure on developments which could not be resolved because of absences of, or inadequacies in, planning securities and other unforeseen cost and risk issues. The fund will be operated by the local authorities and will be carefully targeted mainly to address difficulties in public infrastructure that have arisen on certain developments included in the Department's National Housing Development Survey 2013.
It is also necessary to explore resolution of those developments which appear to be commercially unviable due to location, build quality, commercial demand or other factors and where the most prudent course of action may be to seek the agreement of owners/funders to clear all or part of the site. Accordingly, the National Coordinating Committee established a group to oversee the development of a strategy for these residual developments and to work with stakeholders in identifying and agreeing such sites for full or partial clearance, thereby improving the lives of existing residents and removing dangerous structures from public access. Some forty such developments have been initially identified and fall to be addressed by the relevant owners, receivers and funders.
Responsibility for the clearance of unviable estates remains the responsibility of the funders and I welcome their participation in this pragmatic approach which will further underscore a return to a properly functioning property market.
