Edenderry councillors lash out over Killane housing delay

The Housing Minister has confirmed that a "conciliation case" involving Offaly County Council and a building contractor is taking place regarding a local authority housing scheme at Killane in Edenderry, as two local councillors criticised the delay in completing the project. The private secretary of Minister Michael Finneran wrote to Edenderry Town Councillor Noel Cribbin in December to inform him of the current situation at the troubled housing estate, which was due to be ready for occupation in 2006. 'There is still remedial work to be done on the drains from the houses to the main sewer before the houses can be occupied and this is likely to take another few months to complete,' said the Minister"s letter. And Offaly County Council has now engaged a second contractor to complete and remedy the works on the current 39 houses that remain uncompleted. Cllr Cribbin welcomed the news that a second contractor had been appointed. 'However, I find the delays and lack of urgency shown by Offaly County Council totally unacceptable,' he said. He said the council had squandered taxpayers" money through the delays in getting people housed in Killane while losing out on important council revenue. Cllr Cribbin estimated that the council has lost out on rent of €600,000 because of the delays, while spending €500,000 on rent allowance for the applicants. He also estimated that the sites due to be sold in phase three of the project would have made the council around €4.5 million. 'Why wait three years to bring in a second contractor, and is he local? Did the council employ a clerk of works on this project? What value is on the sites in the present climate?' asked Cllr Cribbin, as he questioned if there was accountability within the council on the issue. Cllr Noel Bourke described the stand-off as 'totally unsatisfactory' and said that the houses at Killane need to be urgently completed without any further delay. 'I have told officials that I am finding it increasingly difficult to explain to housing applicants why it"s taking so long to have the houses completed and while I know that there are issues between the council and the builder to be sorted out, this has gone on long enough and finality to this matter is needed,' said Cllr Bourke. The current 39 houses remain uncompleted while the building of a further 24 houses is now delayed until the first matter is sorted out. The council set aside €4.9 million for the housing scheme at Killane. This first scheme is phase one of three. Phase two will be a block of affordable houses and phase three will consist of sites sold to qualifying applicants.