Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

This matter is a very important one for the Department of housing and I thank the Deputy for raising it. It is very important that local authority tenants who are occupying social housing properties and paying weekly rents are living in homes that provide good comfort levels for their occupants.

The Deputy will be aware that in accordance with section 58 of the Housing Act 1966, local authorities are legally responsible for the management and maintenance of their housing stock, including pre-letting repairs to vacant properties, the implementation of a planned maintenance programme and carrying out of responsive repairs. Local authorities also have a legal obligation to ensure that all their tenanted properties are compliant with the provisions of the Housing (Standards for Rented Houses) Regulations 2019.

Notwithstanding the legal obligation on local authorities to manage and maintain their own stock, the Department of housing provides annual funding support to local authorities for management and maintenance under a number of grant programmes such as the planned maintenance-voids programme, the energy efficiency retrofit programme, the disabled person grants programme and regeneration, with the selection of homes and the nature and priority of works for inclusion in the programmes a matter for the relevant local authority. Since the Government has taken office, Exchequer funding of over €558 million has been provided to support local authorities work in this area.

Cork City Council has informed officials from the Department of housing of a targeted approach in the form of additional resources, which were concentrated on addressing internal work in the flat complexes at Clashduv Road, Togher Road and Sycamore Place. Work identified included heating and plumbing issues, window servicing, electrical repairs, mould growth and fireplaces. The full list identified as part of this strategy was addressed along with a number of additional requests of a similar nature.

As is the case across all of the housing stock, Cork City Council continues to receive and address repair requests for these areas in the standard manner. The Department of housing will continue to support local authorities in their work generally in this area. Of particular note is a new asset management ICT system for social housing surveys to support this work. This is being rolled out to all local authorities this year with the hope it will further streamline that process and the supports available.

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