The Office of Public Works has spent more than €20 million renting office space and other buildings in Cork, even as 14 State-owned properties in the county sit vacant or are waiting to be sold off.
The figures, which have raised serious questions about how public money is being managed, show a striking disconnect between what the State is paying landlords and what it already owns but refuses to use.
The OPW is responsible for managing the government’s property portfolio across the country, which includes everything from offices to heritage sites. In Cork, that portfolio includes a string of properties that are either sitting idle or have been marked for disposal, meaning they are essentially gathering dust while taxpayers foot the bill for leased accommodation elsewhere in the same county.
Critics have pointed to the situation as a clear example of poor planning and a lack of joined-up thinking within the State. If properties are vacant and State-owned, the obvious question is why they are not being used to reduce the reliance on expensive private leases.
The €20 million figure covers leased accommodation costs in Cork and reflects a pattern seen in other parts of the country where the OPW has faced scrutiny over its property decisions. Leasing arrangements can make sense in certain situations, particularly when specific buildings are needed in specific locations for operational reasons. But when vacant State-owned properties are sitting in the same area, the justification becomes much harder to defend.
Of the 14 vacant properties in Cork, some are awaiting disposal, which means the State has already decided it wants to sell or transfer them. Others are simply unused. The OPW has not provided a detailed breakdown of why each property remains out of use, but the combination of vacancy and high leasing costs in the same region has drawn attention from politicians and public spending watchdogs.
This is not the first time the OPW has come under fire for its management of the State property portfolio. The office oversees hundreds of buildings nationwide and has long struggled with the challenge of matching available space to actual needs across different government departments. Departments often have specific requirements around location, size, and fit-out, which can complicate efforts to simply move people into whatever building happens to be free.
However, campaigners and opposition politicians argue that the scale of spending on leases, particularly when set against the backdrop of vacant State property, points to a systemic problem rather than a series of one-off decisions.
Cork is one of the most important economic and administrative centres outside Dublin, and the demand for office space from government departments and agencies in the city is significant. That demand has grown in recent years as more public sector roles have been decentralised from the capital as part of broader government policy to spread employment and investment across the regions.
Decentralisation was supposed to make the State more efficient and reduce pressure on Dublin, but critics have argued it has sometimes created new inefficiencies, including situations where the government ends up leasing expensive private space in regional cities rather than making better use of what it already owns.
The OPW has said it is working to reduce its reliance on leased accommodation over time and that the disposal of surplus properties is part of an ongoing rationalisation process. But progress has been slow, and the latest figures from Cork suggest the problem is far from resolved.
For local representatives, the figures are frustrating. Cork has seen significant investment in recent years and is positioning itself as a major hub for business, technology, and public services. Against that backdrop, the sight of State buildings sitting empty while rent bills pile up is a difficult one to explain to constituents.
The broader question of how Ireland manages its public property assets is one that is likely to stay on the political agenda. With pressure on public finances and ongoing debates about value for money in government spending, the OPW will be expected to show it has a credible plan to get more from what it already owns before signing any more leases.