Varadkar: Council homes vacant 'for good reason' 

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar was speaking in Belfast, where he held bilateral meetings with British representatives following the announcement of €1.14bn in funding through Peace Plus.

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has said in the “majority” of cases, council homes are vacant “for good reason.” 

Mr Varadkar was reacting to a report which revealed more than 3,500 council homes across the country lay empty at the end of the first half of this year.

When put to him the vacant properties represented a lack of urgency from the Government — given 12,847 people are homeless — Mr Varadkar said there were a number of reasons for empty properties.

“I looked at the figures, that indicate that at any point in time, about 2% or 3% of local authority houses are vacant, and they're generally vacant for a reason.

“Sometimes they're being refurbished, sometimes they're being earmarked for demolition to be replaced by new complexes, you'll see that all over Dublin.

Sometimes a tenant has moved out and a new tenant is about to move in. So you'll always have a certain amount of vacancy.

“And if it's in around 2% or 3%, I think in the vast majority of cases, it's a vacancy for good reason.” 

The vacant council figures were released to Aontú leader and Meath West TD Peadar Tóibín under a Freedom of Information request.

It comes as the 31 local authorities across Ireland have more than 95,000 people on their housing waiting lists.

The Taoiseach was speaking in Belfast, where he held bilateral meetings with British representatives following the announcement of €1.14bn in funding through Peace Plus.

'Urgency'

He said the “urgency” being shown by the Government has been demonstrated “in the fact we built more social housing last year than any year since the 1970s”.

And we'll do that again this year, probably at about 10,000 social homes, the housing stock, and that's providing homes for thousands of families.” 

Housing Minister Darragh O’Brien has yet to publish the number of social housing homes built by the State this year. He has said he would not publish the data until he had “verified” information.

Sinn Féin has hit out at Mr O’Brien for not publishing the figures for social and affordable housing delivery for the first six months of the year.

The Government has promised to build 9,100 new social homes and 5,500 affordable homes for the year.

Earlier in the summer, the Taoiseach faced criticism after he said people in emergency accommodation were turning down multiple offers of social housing and it is one of the reasons why the country's homeless figures remain high.