Minister of State for Planning Ciarán Cuffe has confirmed that developers and landowners may be compelled to demolish partly-completed developments.
His comments follow this week's statement by the National Asset Management Agency's Chief Executive Brendan McDonagh that sending in bulldozers could be unavoidable.
Later today, Mr Cuffe, a professional planner, will address the Irish Planning Institute's conference in Tullamore and speak in detail about what to do with the spectre of ghost estates.
However, he has made clear that in what he terms 'extreme cases' landowners and developers may be compelled to demolish partly completed, but unstable or deteriorating developments, for safety and other reasons.
Mr McDonagh told an Oireachtas Joint Committee earlier this week that while this could be a difficult decision, knocking down certain developments may be unavoidable - despite the move incurring costs.
Minister Cuffe has supported this statement but said that bulldozers are not the only solution. He said planners and architects will also be required to transform estates into sustainable communities where possible.
Disadvantaged should get first preference
The Irish Rural Link organisation has said the Government must give first preference to new community housing and development projects before any decision is made to demolish houses in so-called 'ghost estates’.
Rural Link represents the interests of groups in disadvantaged areas.
At the IPI conference this morning, Leitrim County Planning Officer Ciarán Tracey also said that attracting people to live in hundreds of vacant houses in the county is a bigger issue than the possibility of demolishing them in the years to come - if NAMA chooses to go ahead with such a policy.
