€659,554 has been allocated to bring local authority housing back into use in Clare.
Clare County Council will use the funds to renovate thirty houses for re-letting. The council applied for funding to renovate eighty seven derelict houses, three applications were rejected and a further fifty six are in the process of being assessed.
Support is provided to local authorities under two programmes to carry out the operation. Refurbishing vacant social housing stock requires significantly more works than the normal level of pre-letting repairs. The Voids programme, which commenced in 2014, provides funding support of up to €30,000 per unit. The Derelicts programme was introduced in 2016 to provide additional support to Local Authorities in remediating more seriously derelict social houses.
Fine Gael TD Pat Breen believes the allocation of €659,554 is another move in the right direction in dealing with housing issues in the county. “Returning vacant Local Authority housing to use is a key element of Minister Simon Coveney’s new housing plan ‘Rebuilding Ireland’ and it is crucially important in helping to tackle our homelessness problem”.
“In addition, the Housing Agency is also being provided with €70 million of capital funding to engage with banks and investment companies to acquire properties for social housing nationally, which will deliver 1,600 units over the period to 2020.
His party colleague and fellow TD, Joe Carey praised the announcement and also highlighted other initiatives that aim to tackle the housing issue. “Other measures include a ‘Repair and Leasing’ initiative to allow property owners bring vacant properties up to standard for leasing for social housing. Capital provision of €6 million will deliver 150 units under this new initiative.
“A ‘Buy and Renew’ initiative will also support local authorities and approved housing bodies to purchase private housing units in need of repair, renew them and make them available for social housing use. An initial capital provision of €25 million will be available for this initiative,” Deputy Carey explained.