Housing need in Mayo 'is shocking'

A Castlebar councillor has called on the Department of Housing to declare a housing emergency in Castlebar.

In an impassioned speech delivered at last week’s municipal district meeting, Independent Cllr Harry Barrett said he was "frightened by the housing need in this town and county at the moment".

“Rents are at a level I have not seen before, there is virtually no supply for social housing and a growing cohort who are working cannot afford their rent because of the income limits. So they are being told they cannot get help from the council and they cannot get a loan and are getting poorer by the day.

“A recent RTÉ television report on Castlebar said we needed 437 units to meet the need in this municipal district, but by my reckoning, just 46 were built in the last five years. That tells us where we are going. Meanwhile, there are 49 families in emergency housing."

Cllr Barrett said housing is the "biggest issue" in Castlebar at the moment and he proposed that the municipal council write to the Department and ask it to declare a "housing emergency" in the county town.

“The need out there is shocking. The [council's] housing section is already working flat out on this but what we need is to ask the Department for more autonomy to build more houses. We have our own engineering staff, our workmen, gangers etc.

“We also have to appeal to the Department for a dereliction amnesty. We are flapping about the place with dereliction, nothing is happening and we don’t have the staff to police it.

“We want action with teeth. We need to be the one to start building affordable housing, the housing section can’t do it anymore and are doing the best with the supply they have.

“So I propose we write to the Department of Housing to call this an emergency situation and appeal for measures needed to resolve this housing crisis.” 

Cllr Barrett was supported by his colleagues, with Cllr Michael Kilcoyne saying: “It rests with the people we elected. Three of the five here, our own TDs in Mayo, are in government.” 

Cllr Blackie Gavin said: “Instead of writing we should bring the Department [officials] down here and meet them face to face". 

"They won't come," replied Cllr Al McDonnell.

Cathaoirleach Cllr Donna Sheridan said serviced sites must be provided for housing while a focus must be put on apprenticeships to ensure young people are encouraged to work in construction.

Cllr Kilcoyne said it really galled him to hear the Minister for Housing James Browne calling out for local councils to re-zone land when Castlebar Municipal District had done exactly that in relation to affordable houses that were to be built in Rathbawn, which the minister then refused.

Cllr Gavin said: “It’s alright for the government to say rezone land but they need to put in the water and infrastructure services first. I said before, you could build a whole new town on the new N5 road from Turlough to Westport. Re-zone that and you can build as many houses as you want.” 

Cllr Cyril Burke said the call-out from the new Minister for Housing would present another opportunity soon to re-zone lands for housing and he hoped the land in council ownership on the Ballinrobe Road, which could accommodate 100 homes, would be rezoned from agriculture to commercial.

District manager David Mellett said: “Since June 2023, our district has probably been the busier one across the county in terms of housing in that it has taken on 29 units which has kept 29 families in their homes and we are looking at adding more to the housing stock. There is now €3.85 million available to us and we have until the end of June to use that before losing it so we are very busy working on it.”