Claim that 30% of Kerry council houses vacant

Between 20% to 30% of local authority houses are vacant at any one time , a Kerry county council meeting has been told.

“The housing problem in these areas is not so much due to a lack of houses, but due to lack of occupation of houses,” said Fianna Fáil councillor John Brassil.

A special housing meeting was needed to discuss the housing crisis, he said.

The October monthly council meeting in Tralee was told red tape sometimes delayed the repair and preparation of houses for new tenants and it could take months to get the go ahead for small jobs such as renewing bathrooms and kitchens, partly because of a tender process in which trade unions had to be informed of contractors’ details.

County chief executive Moira Murrell said she accepted turnaround times were too long and they “needed to be tightened”.

The council was being asked to deliver over 1,000 housing units through construction, purchase, leasing, and rental schemes by 2017, she said. Some €65m was being made available and 400 units would be delivered by the end of 2015. The target for 2015 was 30 house purchases and in fact this would be exceeded by the end of the year, she said.

Close to 100 vacant houses would be readied for transfer to new tenants by the end of the year and this was also ahead of target, she said saying that hundreds more units would be leased.