Council rapped for failing to service gas boilers of all tenants

A LOCAL authority has been accused of failing in its duty to tenants after ordering services on only about a half of the gas boilers in its housing stock in the last two years.

This was despite expert advice that gas boilers are serviced every year for safety and energy efficiency reasons.

There are an estimated 7,500 Cork City Council homes fitted with gas central heating. However, a new report presented to councillors shows that the council issued contracts to service a total of 4,192 gas boilers over the last two winters — about two-thirds of its total stock.

Inspections were completed on just 2,255 of those boilers in the period 2009 to 2011.

Socialist Party councillor Mick Barry said this is despite advice from Bord Gáis that every gas boiler should be serviced annually.

The council said there are various reasons why the other 1,937 boilers included in the original service contracts were not serviced, including:

* The boiler had already been serviced by the tenant.

* The tenant did not respond to contact from the servicing contractor.

* The contractor could not gain access to the property at an agreed date or time.

“Despite the fact that Bord Gáis recommends an annual boiler check, Cork City Council has failed to order boiler checks for over two years now on 44% of their stock,” Mr Barry said. “The council are being derelict in their duties as a landlord in respect of thousands of properties every year.

“I will fight any attempt by right-wing councillors to impose charges on tenants for boiler maintenance,” Mr Barry said.

“I will also campaign to ensure that every council tenant gets an annual boiler check and that this is not paid for through cuts in other services.

“The council has duties as a landlord and these duties must be attended to in full and without further delay,” he added.

The council used to adopt the position that boiler maintenance was the tenants’ responsibility. But this policy was questioned by Mr Barry and Labour’s Cllr Catherine Clancy some years ago following requests from the Roche’s Buildings Residents Association.

The council’s housing maintenance section subsequently received advice from the city’s law department that this was not a reliable assumption and that a court could view the landlord — the city council in these cases — as being responsible.

The council then began to order the boiler services itself. It is estimated that the cost of servicing the city’s entire stock of boilers every year would be in the region of €450,000.

The funding allocated to cover the programme this year stands at just €150,000.

Mr Barry said this shortfall is further proof of the devastating effect of Government cutbacks.

The housing maintenance non-pay budget for this year stands at just €4,556,300.