There's a total of 112 vacant council houses in Tipperary

According to extensive research conducted by Aontú, the party's housing spokesperson, Sarah Beasley has stated that there are currently more than 3,500 council-owned houses vacant around the country, with 112 of them in Tipperary.

The data was secured after Aontú submitted requests under the Freedom of Information Act to all local authorities in the country. 

The figures released also show that nationally there are 98,171 people on housing waiting lists, 54,468 households or people in receipt of the housing assistance payment HAP, and 10,603 in the Rental Accommodation Scheme RAS. 

Tipperary is in the top ten of the highest number of vacant houses at 112, and the length of the waiting list in the county is at 3,353 applicants. Aontú was not furnished with the number of households receiving HAP. However, the number of RAS payments was at 637. HAP numbers are always significantly higher than RAS.

Ms Beasley said: "It is incredible that in the jaws of a national emergency in terms of housing that well over 3,500 local authority homes are lying empty tonight. Well over 100 Tipperary families could be housed if the vacant stock was turned around faster.

"According to Aontú's findings, there are enough empty local authority homes in the state to house well over half the number of people who are homeless. 

"Much of the focus of the political bubble has been on the large number of empty homes in private hands. However, we in Aontú believe that it's unforgivable that state bodies themselves preside over empty homes.

"Thousands of homeless people are living in emergency accommodation throughout the country at great human cost to themselves and at great financial cost to the state".