Micheál Carrigy (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for taking my Commencement matter, which relates to funding for Longford County Council under the Housing for All voids programme, which has been ongoing for a number of years. I was at a meeting of the housing committee last January at which executive members from Longford County Council were in attendance. The council was challenged to decrease the number of voids in the local authority housing stock, which stood at 7.2% in 2021. It was brought down to 3.5% by the end of 2023 and will be further reduced by the end of this year. This comes at a cost, however. To get to that level, there has been an increase in the amount of work done to reduce the number of voids. There is a large number of houses on which works are taking place to get to that figure.

Currently, the Department pays a grant under the voids programme up to a maximum of €11,000 per house. I will give the Minister of State figures come from the Society of Chartered Surveyors of Ireland with regard to the average costs of a house upgrade. When upgrading a house, it must be brought up to a higher standard of retrofitting. Those costs averaged €20,865 in 2020 and €46,913 in 2023. Using the expenditure expended so far this year in the voids programme, those costs are now averaging more than €51,000 per house to bring it up to the new standards. While it is only right that retrofitting works are done to the highest standard in order that they will last longer, the increases in cost have meant that Longford County Council has been running shortfalls every year since the programme has come in. I point out that we approached the Department in 2023 and received €1.54 million in extra funding to help with that deficit. The shortfall for the local authority for the work that has been done since 2021, however, currently stands at €3.4 million.

That is not sustainable for a small county with a small rate base. We actually increased our rates for 2024. We were the first local authority to increase our local property tax. I was on the corporate policy group which proposed a 15% increase in 2019. We have done it every year since to ensure there is funding for projects in the districts and to match funding for various projects throughout the county under the various schemes, such as the town and village renewal scheme, etc. We cannot sustain that cumulative debt building up if we want to hit the targets we have been challenged to meet by the housing committee. I am looking for an increase in funding. The grant of €11,000 per house should be increased and revised because the reality is that no one is able to bring a house back into stock with figures like that. I am seeking increased funding for our local authority to get our figures down to where they should be and where the housing committee and the Department of housing want them to be.