TD wants 'every council house returned in 12 weeks' with 150 vacant homes in Cork

Mr Gould said changes were needed to allow local authorities, rather than waiting for the Department of Housing to give the go-ahead, to be able to work returning homes throughout the year

Mr Gould said that boarded-up houses have 'devastating effects' in communities where families are 'coming out every day looking at them'. Picture: @frank_oconnor /X/Stock

Vacant council homes should be made available to move into within 12 weeks, a Cork TD has said as he hit out at the levels of vacancy across the county.

Figures released to Cork North Central Sinn Féin TD Thomas Gould show that nearly 800 council homes in Ireland have been vacant for over a year.  Some 150 houses are currently vacant in Cork county — with 36 empty for longer than 12 months. In the city, 99 homes have been vacant for longer than two years.

Mr Gould said that his party would next week bring a Dáil motion calling on the Government to grant resources to local authority housing departments in a bid to make these houses ready within 12 weeks.

"This is a scandal where we're in the middle of the worst housing crisis in the history of the State, and what we are trying to do is bring forward solutions," Mr Gould said.

This in itself won't solve the housing crisis, but what it would do is release thousands of homes that would help to house people who are homeless, but also take people out of the rental market

"This will have a domino positive effect from homeless services to social housing to renters," he added.

Mr Gould said changes were needed to allow local authorities, rather than waiting for the Department of Housing to give the go-ahead, to be able to work returning homes all year long, and "not just waiting for once or twice a year for the Government to give sanction".

'Proper procedure'

"We think that makes sense, and what we can't understand is we've been talking about this for years and Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael haven't put a proper procedure in place to get these houses turned around."

Mr Gould said that boarded-up houses have "devastating effects" in communities where families are "coming out every day looking at them".

"They're magnets for anti-social behaviour, magnets for dumping," he said.

They just drag down the whole environment of really good communities, and it's about time now the government stepped up

Mr Gould, the party’s spokesman on urban regeneration and renewal, planning, public realm, and local government, said there are thousands of homes that have been boarded up for three to four years, with some homes lying empty for eight years.

Limerick, Wicklow, Tipperary, and Louth have council homes boarded up for the longest time periods, while Donegal, Cork City and Limerick have the highest levels of vacant stock.

“Why are local authorities boarding up houses? When a family moves out [and] if that house is [in] a decent condition, let’s put a family straight in. Let’s not board it up. Let’s put people in there.

“Instead, it’s being boarded up, waiting for the Department of Housing to give money in 12 months’ time, and then taking another six months for procurement to do it up," he added.

“We want to get every house returned within 12 weeks. We think 12 gives time for local authorities to repair the house and get them out again."

Mr Gould said that while the average cost of repairs was €28,000, local authorities are only given €11,000 to do the works. This, he said, created a reluctance to carry out the work quickly.