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TÁNAISTE SIMON HARRIS has been accused of “gaslighting” in relation to comments he made recently on the number of empty council-owned homes across Ireland.
Last month, Aontú leader Peadar Tóibín told the Dáil that the number of council-owned homes across Ireland that are empty is “akin to exporting food in the middle of a famine”.
It’s after he was informed that there were 3,779 empty council-owned homes across the State.
In response, Harris said he “agreed” with Tóibín that “council-owned homes can lie empty for far too long”.
Harris said the Government “intends to issue a circular to all local authorities to make it clear that health and safety should be the only grounds for the delay of the giving out of a local authority home, not the bells and whistles they sometimes go on with”.
However, Sinn Féin’s housing spokesperson Eoin Ó Broin said Harris is “gaslighting both Council staff and people in desperate need of council homes”.
Speaking to The Journal, Ó Broin said that the refurbishment standard for Council properties when they are being re-let is “already very basic” and that they are not being delayed due to “bells and whistles”.
During a debate last month on vacant council housing, Sinn Féin TD Thomas Gould noted that a 2023 report from the National Oversight and Audit Commission found that the average reletting time for empty council homes was above 33 weeks.
Meanwhile, the average cost of refurbishment works was around €28,350.
However, the Department of Housing contributes a maximum of €11,000 per property to refurbish empty council-owned homes.
“Many local authorities simply don’t have the funds to turn the properties around as quickly as they need,” said Ó Broin.
Ó Broin added that there are “very significant restrictions imposed by government procurement rules”.
“In many cases this will result in properties being held until there’s a bundle of them so that they can be done all in one go by private contractors, which also causes delay,” said Ó Broin.
He called on the government to “provide adequate funding to ensure these homes can be brought back in use as quickly as possible” and to “introduce the maximum level of flexibility for the procurement rules”.
Ó Broin also called for a standardised time period of 12 weeks to bring vacant council homes back into use and for the government to ensure all local authorities meet this.
The primary cause of the delay in bringing vacant council properties back into use is the government.
While Ó Broin said there are “some poorer practices in local authorities”, he added that other local authorities are “doing everything they can and need more assistance from government”.
“The idea that local authorities are spending money they shouldn’t do on bringing vacant council homes back into use simply isn’t true,” said Ó Broin, “and shows the extent to which the Tánaiste has no idea what he’s talking about, but just wants to displace the blame for the housing crisis onto everybody else.”
Ó Broin added that the real issue is the length of time of vacancy, rather than the number of vacant council homes.
“The level of vacancy in the council stock is much, much lower than the level of vacancy in private stock.
“In a social housing stock of the size that we have in the State, there will always be a percentage of homes vacant – typically speaking, it might be between 1% or 2%.
“The real issue is the length of time of the vacancy and we need to get the average turnaround time down to 12 weeks.”
Elsewhere, Labour’s housing spokesperson Conor Sheehan told The Journal that the government “need to fund council’s properly to refurbish vacant homes in a timely manner”.
However, he said that local authorities “often” refurbish vacant homes “above” the minimum standard in order to “future proof maintenance costs”.
Sheehan added that the circular Harris intends to issue “will not make one jot of difference unless it comes with a corresponding uplift in funding”.
“It is often not as simple as giving a house that was tenanted for decades a lick of paint before it is re-let,” said Sheehan.
He noted that the €11,000 offered by the Department per vacant council home has “not increased since 2014”.
“Construction inflation has increased by 114% since 2014 and that €11,000 figure has not increased,” added Sheehan.
Funding is the primary issue and not circulars from the Department.
Meanwhile, Tóibín told The Journal that Aontú believes that “homes should be issued if they are safe and warm”.
He added: “It’s not good enough for the government to just sit on the sidelines and complain.
“The government themselves can decide policy for local authorities but also Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael tend to hold power in many local authorities in the State.”
Tóibín said there is an “enormous cost” and also a “human cost to not getting these houses back into use”.
He added that housing turnover when a tenant leaves is “far swifter in the private rental market” and asked why local authorities cannot match this timeframe.
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