Carrick-on-Suir councillors vent their frustration at council homes left vacant for months

Carrick-on-Suir’s councillors have vented their frustration at the length of time it is taking to allocate tenants for empty council homes in their town.

Fianna Fáil Cllr Kieran Bourke complained at Carrick-on-Suir Municipal District’s July meeting that there were a lot of void council houses in Carrick that the council hasn’t occupied with tenants.

Refurbishment works were finished on some of these houses for months and months but still hadn’t been handed out to new tenants, he pointed out.

Constituents were coming to him and asking why houses were lying idle for 10 and 12 months.

Sinn Féin Cllr David Dunne supported his complaint. He acknowledged council staff were carrying out repairs and refurbishment works quickly in houses where a tenant dies but it was taking a long time to re-allocate them to new tenants.

“There is nothing worse for a councillor than to have someone coming to them saying this house is idle six months. We can’t afford to have this happening,” he declared pointing to the housing crisis and growing number of applicants on the Council’s housing lists.

“We need to turn around these houses fast,” he added.

Shaun Lonergan of Tipperary County Council's Housing Section responded the council was trying to reduce the number of void council homes across the county. A few homes have been added to the list, which has grown slightly.

He asked Cllr Bourke to contact him if he had particular cases of void houses he wished to discuss with him.