Delivering Homes, Building Communities, the Government’s Housing Action Plan, seeks to significantly accelerate the delivery of new homes by focusing on activating land and encouraging housing activity.
Under the ‘4Dublin Housing Supply Pipeline’ initiative, the four local authorities in the Dublin Region (Fingal County Council, South Dublin County Council, Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council and Dublin City Council) provide combined quarterly data to my Department on new residential planning permissions and housing construction activity for permitted developments. The most recently published data available on Gov.ie at 4Dublin Housing Supply Pipeline Monitor Q3 2025 Report indicates 8,312 uncommenced residential units located on 52 inactive sites in the Fingal County Council area.
The Residential Zoned Land Tax (RZLT) has been in effect since 2025 and aims to encourage the activation of new housing on appropriately zoned residential lands nationally. The tax is payable at 3% annually on land which is suitably zoned and serviced for residential development, and includes vacant and idle mixed use land in addition to greenfield sites. Liable sites are identified on maps published annually on 31 January each year by the 31 local authorities and are available to view in an aggregated format at RZLT Mapping | National Planning Geospatial Data Hub
The RZLT acts as an incentive to activate planning permissions on land identified as being suitable for housing through the zoning of lands in development plans. While a deferral of the tax may available for the first year after planning permission is granted, sites that remain inactive but with uncommenced planning permissions will continually accrue the tax on an annually basis until construction commences. A deferral of the RZLT is available while construction of the housing development is being undertaken, pending completion of the development.
The Government’s intention to legislate for a derelict property tax was announced as part of Budget 2026 and this measure is identified in Action 4.1 in Delivering Homes, Building Communities. It is intended to introduce legislation providing for the tax in the Finance Act in 2026 alongside a scoping exercise to identify derelict properties in each Local Authority.
Currently, the Derelict Sites Levy is an annual Levy of 7% of the market value of land identified on the Derelict Sites Register of the local authority. The rate of the Derelict Property Tax is yet to be determined but it is envisaged that the tax rate would not be lower than the current 7% Derelict Sites Levy rate.
Subject to the necessary legislation being introduced in Finance Bill 2026, preliminary registers will be published by local authorities in 2027. Local authorities will continue to have a role in the process, as updating and maintaining their Derelict Sites Registers will continue to remain the responsibility of the local authorities.
Derelict Sites levies that remain outstanding and owed to the local authority when the new tax is introduced will remain as a charge on the properties concerned and remain the responsibility of each local authority to collect.
The future derelict property tax, operating in conjunction with existing taxation measures like the RZLT, will aid the activation of sites and properties to increase housing supply in Fingal and across the State.
