The red-brick building at 14 Dominick Street Upper is covered in graffiti and the windows blocked up.
A council notice is fixed to the wall. But it is broken, and washed into illegibility by rainwater.
What is Dublin City Council doing to push the owners to bring the building back into use? asked Green Party Councillor Janet Horner recently.
It turns out Dublin City Council is the owner.
It was vested in the council in 2004 under the Derelict Sites Act, says Margaret Mooney, an administrative officer with the council, in a written response issued to Horner last week.
“A proposal to dispose of the property to private developers proved unsuccessful and became the subject of protracted legal proceedings,” says Mooney. “DCC are currently investigating possible future uses for the site.”
Ciarán Cuffe, formerly a Green Party MEP, says he spotted the vacant home when he was out and about but he isn’t surprised that it turned out the council is the owner.
“Chances are, in Dublin, if it has buddleia growing on it, it’s owned by the local authority,” he says. “And that is not the way it should be.”
Cuffe says Dublin City Council should publish a map of all the buildings it owns and outline its plans for any that are vacant.
Not the only example
Next door to the derelict building on Dominick Street is a shuttered pub, Thomas O’Brennan’s Public House, with new brickwork.
Property records show the council bought 14 Upper Dominick Street in January 2004. But the deeds don’t list the previous owners.
According to the Derelict Sites Act, after it compulsorily purchases a derelict building, the council can use it or sell it on.
Horner says she wants to know why the council didn’t develop the site for social housing, if it was having difficulty selling it. “It just raises so many questions.”
She also wants full details of what the legal issues were. Because the delay is “entirely unacceptable”, she says.
Dublin City Council hasn’t responded to queries sent last Wednesday, asking why it didn’t use the Dominick Street site for social housing and about plans to use it again.
“It’s terrible” says former council planner Kieran Rose, “but it’s not the only example.”
In Dolphins Barn the council compulsorily purchased a derelict row of shops and then sold them to a private developer, which in turn failed to bring them back into use in the agreed time frame, he says.
In 2022, residents on Connaught Street in Phibsboro complained that Dublin City Council was too slow to renovate derelict homes it had bought on their street three years previously.
The Council’s housing manager at the time, Coilín O’Reilly, said that the council needed to do surveys of the property before it could tender for a builder to carry out the work.
Dublin City Council has to apply to the Department of Housing for the money each time it renovates a derelict home. It got funding to renovate another derelict property, 38 and 39 Bolton Street in 2018, but the work never went ahead.
Cuffe says he often spots vacant buildings in the city and when he inquires it turns out the council owns them.
About eight years ago, when he was a councillor, he wrote to the then chief executive of Dublin City Council, Owen Keegan, flagging a list of around 15 vacant council owned properties, he says.
“In fairness, he acted on it,” he said. “Maybe I should do that again.”
What is wrong?
The Derelict Sites Act gives power to councils to force owners to sell derelict buildings to them, even if the owners don’t want to. The purpose is to reduce urban dereliction.
A derelict site is one which “detracts, or is likely to detract, to a material degree from the amenity, character or appearance of land in the neighbourhood”, the law says.
Dublin City Council hasn’t responded to a query as to what is the point of compulsorily purchasing derelict buildings, if it doesn’t then bring them back into use.
Labour Councillor Dermot Lacey says the problem is that the council doesn’t have the money or the workers to tackle vacancy in its housing stock.
“The best way to create new housing is to refurbish existing homes,” he says. “We have properties all over the place, that are empty and vacant and derelict, because we don’t have the money to repair them.”
Councils used to directly employ more tradesmen, builders and contractors on staff, he says. “What we need is workers. We need people who will put a block on top of a block, we need people who will repair windows.”
Staff shortages could be part of the problem, says Rose, but tackling dereliction also isn’t seen as a priority within Dublin City Council. “There is a culture of tolerating dereliction.”
Louth County Council seems to have a lot more success tackling dereliction, he says.
Councils need to show they are willing to go to court if necessary. “If DCC is seen to be tough then people won’t try it on,” he says
“Things cannot and should not be sitting on a desk for 20 years unacted upon,” says Horner, the Green Party councillor. “There has to be some way to speed things up.”
“We’ve just got to get better at using our building stock,” says Cuffe. “Especially in a housing crisis.”
