Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

We need a bit of time to assess it. The amendments put forward by the Labour Party will form part of our review in this regard. I think all of us believe the CPO system and process need to be improved. I am committed to doing this, but we have not gone through all the implications of the recommendations of the Law Reform Commission report. We will come back to them, but I am going to do so in this Bill. I wish to be clear that a separate piece of work will be done for that undertaking.

As a general point, I regularly engage with local authorities to support them in getting up to the level of those local authorities that are operating very well on the basis of the threat of a CPO, as well as using them in practice. This is why we brought forward the third round of urban regeneration and development fund moneys in the amount of €150 million. This fund was very much focused on vacant and derelict properties in the context of the local authorities. The urban regeneration and development fund is in addition to the land acquisition fund. In many instances, local authorities are undertaking these endeavours by agreement, so they do not have to pull the trigger on the CPO. Certainly, the threat of it has worked and some local authorities are doing this extremely well, such as those in Limerick, Waterford and Louth, to name only three that deserve particular mention. In my county of Fingal, the vacancy rate is very low in comparison, and the local authority there is also doing very well in this regard.

I digress. We are looking at this legislative undertaking as a separate piece of work and I will take the amendments proposed by the Labour Party as part of the review of that work, but I cannot accept them right now as part of this Bill.