One Mayo district is providing bulk of emergency accommodation
Cllr Damien Ryan sought the figures.
Three-quarters of people living in emergency accommodation in Mayo are being housed in the Claremorris-Swinford Municipal District, according to new figures.
Mayo Co Council's Director of Housing Tom Gilligan provided the figures at last week's municipal meeting in response to a query from Fianna Fáil Cllr Damien Ryan.
As of October 9, 2024, there were a total of 212 people in emergency accommodation in the county with 156 accommodated in Claremorris-Swinford MD, 41 in Castlebar MD, three in Ballina MD, 12 in Westport-Belmullet MD and two accommodated in Athlone and Roscommon respectively. These figures do not include Ukrainian and other nationalities who are living in international protection centres and other emergency accommodation units around the county.
Cllr Ryan said the figures show a need for greater balance throughout the county, comments echoed by Cllr Michael Burke, who said:
“You can see this area is carrying more than what we should be."
Meanwhile, the Director of Housing said the council would love to attract more building contractors to retrofit its housing stock, thereby reducing the turnaround times for these properties.
Mr Gilligan made his remarks after Cllr Ryan sought information about the number of empty units (known as 'voids') in the council's housing stock.
Currently, there are three such properties in Ballinrobe, seven in Swinford and four in Claremorris. The average reletting time across all vacant council-owned dwellings in 2023 was just under 40 weeks.
Cllr Ryan said this turnaround time needs to be addressed.
“A turnaround time of 40 weeks is too long, it should take three to four months maximum. I appreciate it is hard to get staff but these voids need to be brought back into circulation,” he said.
Mr Gilligan said there were issues in the construction sector with only four or five contractors typically taking up tenders across the entire county and the council would love to attract more contractors to take on these jobs.
Aontú Cllr Paul Lawless suggested the local authority hire its own construction team to tackle jobs, which would avoid ‘administrative problems’ associated with tenders. However, the suggestion was dismissed by Fine Gael Cllr Alma Gallagher who said "some realism was needed".
“It is difficult to get quotations and to get contractors out to these houses to give quotations. You can’t just go out and pick whoever you need to get value for money as well,” she said.
