Thousands of council houses remain vacant due to rise in the time it takes to move tenants in

In Cork City, it is taking an average of 75 weeks to re-let a home, more than double the national average of 34 weeks

Sinn Féin's Eoin Ó Broin said local authorities are tendering out work rather than hiring sufficient staff. 'This then leads to overly bureaucratic processes in procurement which slows things down.' Picture: Leah Farrell

Councils across Ireland are taking longer and spending more to find tenants for vacant social housing.

The annual report of the National Oversight and Audit Commission (NOAC) shows that the average time from a tenant leaving a council home to a replacement paying their first rent is now over 34 weeks, up from 32 weeks in 2020.

The report shows that some 3% of council houses lie vacant at any one time. Some 4,448 local authority dwellings were unoccupied last December out of a total housing stock of 141,483 owned by councils — a vacancy rate of 3.2% which was effectively unchanged from the previous year.

The average letting cost was €19,653.39 compared to €19,065.30 in 2020; an increase of €588.09. Comparing the six main urban authorities of Cork, Dublin, and Galway Cities, and the county councils of Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown, Fingal, and South Dublin, shows that the longest average re-letting time across these six authorities was recorded by Cork City at 75.72 weeks, and the shortest at 18.44 weeks by Dublin City. Cork City also had the highest cost per unit, compared to Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown's €15,897.41.

In Cork City, it is taking the council 75 weeks and costs an average of €26,321.09 to re-tenant properties, the annual report by NOAC found. In Galway County, that figure is 65 weeks, in Limerick City and County it is 56 weeks, and in Cavan it is 55 weeks.

The national average re-letting time, from the date the tenant vacated the dwelling to the date of the first rent debit in 2021, was 34.44 weeks which is higher than 2020, when it stood at 32.69 weeks.

A spokesperson for Cork County Council, which has an average turnaround of 48 weeks and €25,188 per unit, said that some of its homes take up to two years to be fit for new tenants. They said that times are "dependent on the level of work necessary to restore properties to the appropriate standard and last year ranged from 13 weeks to almost two years, in cases where extensive refurbishment was required".

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Fingal County Council said that it had 104 vacant properties undergoing work, around 2% of its overall stock. A spokesperson for Waterford City and County Council said that it "attaches a high priority to reducing the turnaround time for dwellings given the strong demand for social housing", while Monaghan County Council said that its target is 12 weeks, which the NOAC report shows it falling just shy of.

Housing industry sources say that the turnaround times are "frustrating" as it can lead to at least hundreds of homes not being in use in the midst of the housing and Ukrainian refugee crises.

Sinn Féin housing spokesperson Eoin Ó Broin said that the overall number of vacant homes can come down to movement in the market and was not concerning in and of itself. He said; 

What is concerning is the time it's taking local authorities to refurbish casual vacancies. 

"There are two reasons for this. Local authorities are not restocking maintenance crews which leads to tendering out of work. This then leads to overly bureaucratic processes in procurement which slows things down.

"The department has to step in and say that the turnaround time target is 10 weeks," Mr Ó Broin said.

"In South Dublin County Council, it's gone from 10 weeks to 22 weeks."

A spokesperson for the Department of Housing said that local authorities will always have a level of vacancy in their housing stock which "will fluctuate over time as tenancy surrender and re-letting of stock is an ongoing process". 

They added that through the voids system, 6,032 vacant social homes were brought back into use in 2020 and 2021. A further 2,450 are targeted for this year, 2022.