No entry! 60 council houses to stay boarded up in Kilkenny this year - Newsome Drennan
Not enough funding for County Council to renovate vacant houses
Paltry government funding for councils to bring empty houses back into use has been slammed as ‘insulting to the people of Kilkenny.’
Natasha Newsome Drennan, Sinn Féin TD for Carlow Kilkenny, has revealed that 60 out of more than 90 empty council homes will stay ‘boarded up’ in the county this year, despite rising homeless figures.
“Do this government not realise that we are in the middle of a housing crisis? Boarding up council owned homes when children are growing up in hotels is a sin,” she said.
Work can’t be carried out on the vacant houses by Kilkenny County Council because of a lack of funding, the local TD said.
“Kilkenny County Council are only given €11,000 per house. For many homes, this is an acceptable figure and allows the properties to be brought back to use. For others, this is simply not enough because of years without planned maintenance and these homes are instead boarded up and left to fall into further disrepair.
“This is an insult to people in Kilkenny who are stuck in the Housing Crisis.
“Far too many people are forced into parent’s back bedrooms. At the same time, homes owned by Kilkenny County Council are being left to rot.
“The Voids Return scheme needs an overhaul. Currently, it only opens once a year and many local authorities do not have the funds to return homes to use without it. This means that homes that are ready to live in are instead boarded up until the scheme opens again. On what planet does that make sense?
“We do not need a Housing Czar – we need a Minister who funds local authorities, who listens to local authorities and who supports them to do their job.”
According to the Department of Housing in both 2023 and 2024, 57 social homes were brought back into use. In the last 10 years 407 social homes in Kilkenny have been brought back in use under the Voids Programme.