Thomas Gould (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein)
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One of the biggest issues or concerns I have relates to housing maintenance. Obviously, it accounts for a significant part of the budget of most local authorities. According to the reports produced by NOAC, there was a decrease of 12% in funding spent from 2014 to 2020 but an increase of 17.4% in registered tenancies. When one calculates the decrease in funding and the increase in the number of properties, for every €1 spent, there was a decrease of 25% from 2014 to 2020. The housing stock of most local authorities, including my local Cork City Council and Cork County Council, is getting older and requires more maintenance. The costs of construction, housing and materials are going up, yet there is a 25% decrease. It should be a 25% increase.

For me, housing maintenance is a significant issue for tenants. Local authorities have a duty of care to their tenants and, as landlords, I do not believe they are providing the housing maintenance that is required. When I was first a member of Cork City Council, I was told there would be a preventative maintenance programme every three years. That was during the height of the Celtic tiger crash. It then went to every five years. Now Cork City Council has no rolling preventative maintenance programme. It has almost 11,000 social houses, apart from HAP and RAS. I think it has one tenth of social housing in the State but there is not adequate funding for the local authority.

Why is this issue not being flagged and raised under the NOAC scrutiny of the performance of local authorities? I believe local authorities are failing social housing tenants.