Council berated over its housing 'failure'

Local representatives gave a scathing assessment of Mayo County Council’s housing delivery record at last week’s monthly meeting, describing it as an "abysmal failure".

Councillors made their comments after being presented with the local authority's Housing Delivery Report. Council management said the local authority has built 291 social houses since 2019 and delivered a further 69 to give a total of 360. It has set a target of delivering up to 1,000 social houses by 2027 and has set the following targets: 2024 (157 houses), 2025 (190), 2026 (234) and 2027 (242). Under the Government's Housing for All programme, the council is obliged to deliver a minimum of 730 housing units by the end of 2026. 

However, Fine Gael Cllr Jarlath Munnelly said planning clinics were established to help people with queries but these clinics are "not working".

“It was mentioned in the report about the land zoning tax but we should not prioritise that. The priority for us has to be trying to build houses, end of story," he added.

Cllr Munnelly also insisted the council should "roll out the red carpet" for anybody who wants to build a housing development, but "that is not happening".

Westport-based Cllr Peter Flynn gave a scathing assessment of the local authority’s housing record and described it as an "abysmal failure".

“Housing delivery is the heading of the report, but it should really be ‘Housing Failure,” he said. “If you look at the last five years, our population in Mayo has increased by about 10,000 people."

The Fine Gael representative said that during the days of the town councils, a single town council could deliver the 291 houses built by Mayo County Council since 2019. He also criticised the amount of land for housing purchased by the council, the number of local authority loans issued (60 since 2020) and the amount of properties acquired by compulsory purchase order (CPO).

Fianna Fáil Cllr Damien Ryan said he had an issue with the turnaround of vacant housing stock and asked for figures from each municipal district.

Director of Services for Housing Tom Gilligan rejected the councillors' comments and said the council "did not do that bad" with housing in 2023 compared to other local authorities. He estimated a further 20 housing loans would be approved by the end of 2024.

The local authority received a total of 1,264 planning applications last year - 72% were approved and 5% were refused with the remainder awaiting a final decision.