Mayo Co Council spent €5.2m on homeless services in 2025

Mayo County Council should not be relying on the private sector to build housing but instead needs to have its own homeless fund that could be used to construct housing for those in need across the county, according to a local councillor.

Independent Cllr Harry Barrett made his comments at last week's meeting of the local authority after learning that €5.2 million was spent on financing homeless services throughout 2025.

"That is a very big figure and shows again we are relying on the private sector to do the heavy lifting for housing in this county. That has to change by the council building more affordable and social homes on our own land. Clearly the current system isn’t working, and we have lost control of housing.” 

Fianna Fáil Cllr Damien Ryan agreed, stating: “As the largest landlord in the county the money the council is expending on homeless provision is huge, even with 90% of it being recouped from the Department of Housing. I think we should be looking at standalone provision ourselves, because we are landlords in every other sense of the word and with the current economic uncertainty, who knows what lies ahead. It should not be all about putting money into private pockets but instead we should be the lead agency for housing given that homeless figures are continuing to rise. We should have our own provision in each municipal district and not have to go to the market all the time.” 

Director of Finance Peter Duggan pointed out that while expenditure on homelessness was €249,000 in excess of budgeted expenditure, 90% of overall expenditure was grant funded.

• Published as part of the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme.