Council houses empty for year over repairs delay

UP TO 50 council houses will remain unoccupied for up to a year in parts of Cork county because of the increasing length of time it is taking to get repair work done.

The situation was described as “totally unacceptable” yesterday by a councillor who obtained figures from council officials that show 99 of the local authority’s houses are vacant in the South Cork Division — which includes areas like Youghal, Midleton, Cobh, Glanmire, Kinsale, Bandon and Macroom.

Cllr Seamus McGrath was informed that it took an average of 30 weeks to repair a council house before renting it to a new tenant.

“It is commonplace at this stage for council houses to be vacant for five to six months before any work even commences on them,” Mr McGrath said.

The figures show it is taking longer every year for vacant houses to be handed to new tenants, even though the waiting list in the South Cork Division area now tops 2,000.

In 2009 the average waiting time was 29.58 weeks. It dropped slightly to 29.03 weeks last year but has risen this year to 30.28 weeks.

Cllr McGrath claimed some houses had been idle for up to two years and that “the county council is losing valuable income from rents by having the houses unoccupied”.

He said that Cork County Council officials would say they are short of resources.

“But surely even taking that into account it doesn’t make sense to have such a loss of revenue if rent could be gained from them,” Cllr McGrath said.