Declan Breathnach (Louth, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State, Deputy English, for attending. Louth County Council currently has 91 vacant council houses that cannot be brought back into use due to the lack of maintenance funding. I call on the Minister to provide additional funding to ensure that existing houses in need of refurbishment can be brought back on stream as this can happen in a much faster time than providing new builds.

Under measures announced in budget 2019, the Government is allocating Exchequer funding of almost €2.3 billion to housing programmes. In addition, local authorities will fund a range of housing services to the value of almost €93 million from surplus local property tax receipts, bringing the total housing budget in 2019 to €2.4 billion. None of this matters if the hands of the local authorities, such as Louth County Council, are tied in regard to refurbishing existing stock to bring it back into use. I ask that a portion of the funding announced in the budget be ring-fenced by the Department for local authorities for refurbishment works.

My local authority, Louth County Council, has been lauded in this House in many debates for its achievements in acquiring vacant houses under compulsory purchase orders, having purchased approximately 180 houses. It has been very successful in the use of those powers under the Housing Act to acquire non-derelict homes that are vacant as part of the local authorities' obligation to provide housing. However, it is regrettable that this success cannot follow through to refurbishment of council-owned voids and result in the provision of extra housing to service the ever-growing housing list due to lack of funding.

The housing department of Louth County Council has assured me it has a great working relationship with the Minister of State and his Department and it is working to the best of its ability to find solutions to the housing problem. Louth County Council, like every local authority, is grappling with significant outgoings from the housing department in terms of housing maintenance costs, which are not covered by grants, and the servicing of land loans, which in Louth total €65.3 million, with a cost of over €1 million annually to service the interest.

In regard to the scheme for refurbishment of voids that have been vacant for a longer period and need significant works, the amount of funding grant-aided runs to just €30,000, which is not enough. In Louth, additional works have been carried out on 15 properties this year, with an average cost of €15,000 per unit. This additional funding comes out of the housing maintenance budget. When we talk of casual vacancies, there can be a cost of between €5,000 and €10,000 to bring these houses back to a standard as they often have not been maintained for a number of decades, other than reactive maintenance. These costs are also incurred to facilitate transfers and may not even result in additional families being housed from the waiting list. Other costs that are eating into the budget for refurbishment of newly acquired vacant units relate to funding the use of direct labour on properties that the council has purchased to bring the home up to an appropriate standard. This includes upgrading electrical and plumbing systems, installing smoke alarms and so on, which is different to works on a casual basis.

I ask the Minister to make additional funds available to the local authorities from the budget measures announced to speed up the refurbishment of these vacant units. It is a disgrace 91 houses are sitting empty when people could be occupying them.

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