Brian Stanley (Laois, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Having vacant homes in the middle of a housing crisis is a scandal, particularly when they are local authority houses. There are more than 2,700 vacant at the moment. A third have been vacant for more than a year. This is simply not on. Reletting times average more than eight months and are much more in many cases. The cost of preparing a home for reletting has increased in five years by almost €10,000 per unit. It is now more than €28,000. I want to give the Minister of State the message - if he looks around at vacant houses in Limerick, he will see it himself - that the longer a home is vacant, the more it deteriorates and it becomes subject to vandalism, and this causes problems. The quicker they are reletted, the cheaper it is to do it. One problem is over-reliance on private contractors. I understand that contractors have to be used in certain cases, but when we are totally reliant on them, it causes delays and drives up costs. Laois County Council has started using direct labour. It set up a dedicated reletting team of internal tradesmen and general workers. It is a small county with a small budget but it has a team doing that. It is speeding up delivery of relets. Reletting times are now three months and less. It has also proven to be more cost-effective. Out of a stock of 2,500 homes, fewer than 30 are empty at any given time. It would be better if it was even fewer than that. Eighty homes were relet last year in the county but only half received money from the Department. The average cost of relets in Laois is less than the State average. It works out at around €17,000 or €18,000 compared with the average across the State of more than €28,000. Relet grants from the Department are just €11,000. The Department only funded 40 of the 80 relets in Laois last year. That slows down reletting, along with the stop-start nature of the funding in how it is released by the Department. Boarded-up homes have a negative impact on local communities, not to mention the families desperately waiting for them. All local authorities should have a dedicated relet team made up of direct labour and use it where possible. It cannot be used all the time but it should be where possible. The Department and the Government cannot have a stop-start funding programme for relets. It has to be moving all the time. The Government and Department must provide a greater share of the cost of relets; €11,000 is not sufficient. We simply cannot have homes boarded up in the middle of a housing crisis. It is not on. This is no longer sustainable.

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