Dereliction at core of Mayo housing crisis

No, you’re not wrong, Mayo is becoming more derelict, and now we have the figures to back up the increasing sight of boarded up buildings, slipping slates and broken windows to prove what we all sense across this county.

Since 2021, Mayo has seen an increase of 11.7% in terms of rising dereliction. We are officially the most derelict county with 14.1% of the nation’s derelict addresses.

Figures released by Geodirectory in their Q2 2025 report on housing in Ireland came with an initial good news slogan, that vacancy nationwide is reducing - marginally. Indeed, it has reduced in Mayo also.

Let’s all hail the grants, talented tradespeople and the work put in to help reduce this figure. Mayo went from a 12% vacancy rate in 2021 to a 10.6% in 2025. A 1.4% decline is to be welcomed.

But there’s a stark issue beneath the surface, and it’s evident walking the streets of any market town, village or boreen in Mayo. We are the derelict laggards surrounded by blight, but what is worse, we are becoming more derelict, year on year.

This will continue unless there is a radical plan to halt the decline from a high vacancy rate to a high dereliction rate.

Our housing stock is older, our buildings are deteriorating faster than Mayo county council can process and approve grants to help restore them. We are third in the country regarding the vacant property grant, with over 800 approved.

But this scheme is not enough to solve the issue. As it is, 2,795 homes are derelict in Mayo, with another 7,367 homes vacant.

Other counties are fighting back, making strides and executing the powers available to them in placing levies on delinquent owners and collating valuations on properties.

In Mayo, the derelict sites register sits at 283 properties at the time of writing, with another update anticipated this week.

Sizeable work has gone into it in the last year, but there remains a significant gap in Geodirectory figures and their list.

Again, this is another point of contention for the ordinary Joe Soap, why can An Post who operate Geodirectory know all of the information while the council, another publicly funded function of the state, then has to then devote time, on top of their other duties to also count them and then value the properties individually, identify the owners and levy them with a notice.

Geodirectory findings already do the heavy lifting, if “bringing down silos” as championed by former Taoiseach Simon Harris was to be done, then this is one such case. It would allow council staff to focus on enforcing the act. Ultimately, lightening the load and delete the double handling.

Remarkably, or infuriatingly depending on your view, community groups across Mayo also identify their local derelict and vacant sites via community futures, a Mayo county council operated programme. Many are counting the homes, but not all of them are ending up on the list and the act isn’t being enforced.

A member of the Mayo County Council Housing SPC, Harry Barrett said he is far from shocked by the rising rates of dereliction in Mayo.

"The figures are very stark but not surprising. The primary cause is weakly enforced law, the Derelict Sites Act 1990, that puts very little pressure on delinquent owners to do up their properties. Along with that, you have Mayo County Council who simply do not have the staff to enforce it.”

Again, there does seem to be a continual issue here. Other counties have a dedicated team within the council to work on this, like in Limerick county council, but in Mayo our housing office is already stretched thin with a wide and varied work load.

As per the council official budget documents for this year, the role of detailing the derelict sites register is collaborative, with the Environment, Climate Change and Agriculture Section, and the four Municipal Districts all working on the list.

Yet, there is still only 283 properties listed. Instead of grabbing individuals from separate roles, would a dedicated taskforce focused on the role not do a more dedicated job?

Independent Councillor Barrett states that his calls to lighten the load on the staff in Mayo county council has fallen on deaf ears.

“I tried, through notice of motion, to allocate extra staff to deal with this problem. They still haven't been appointed in Mayo and as a result the numbers are static or indeed getting worse. It's no real surprise.”

He believes however, that it will only be when government begin to place more onus on the matter that we will see the dereliction rates decrease.

“You are going to get Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael in this county, now putting the pressure on Mayo County Council to do more.

If this government was serious it would strengthen the Derelict Sites Act and would bring in real financial consequences for the owners. But it won't.”

The blame game shifts, while at the same time house prices and social housing lists both soar in tandem, and our greatest sin - 54 children in Mayo homeless along with 152 adults.

The average cost of purchasing a property in Mayo is also up, €237,407 is the figure based off 1,072 transactions over the last year.

In 2024 the average cost of buying a home was €224,955 and in 2023 that figure was €214,236. Soon it will be a quarter of a million as the average price to buy a home all of this while homes rot in our towns and villages.

The easy answer as to why our rates are rising in terms of dereliction is due to our old housing stock, a history of rural one-off housing and a legacy of emigration. But when dereliction is so prevalent in our towns, it really makes you wonder why we are not taking this seriously.

It’s low hanging fruit, an ideal opportunity to tackle the housing crisis once and for all. Take a five-year plan, allow tax incentives for owners to sell within a limited timeframe as suggested by economist David McWilliams and championed by councillor Harry Barrett and then further incentivise builders and prospective purchasers.

Because it is evident that the Croí conaithe grant can help slowly chip away at vacancy, but is unable to challenge the real scourge of dereliction. Where are the tradespeople I hear you ask?

Well that’s a question for RTÉ presenters and producers, it may be an issue in south Dublin, but as seen in a post on a popular facebook group about builders in Mayo where one person asked for a roofer, within an hour there were 9 comments of several unique names proffered. There are plenty of trades in this county, yes they are busy but they are here.

We have the trades, but we also have homes lying idle and blighting our landscape. Dereliction remains, in my view, the most important issue underlying this housing crisis.