County councillors clash over housing performance in Offaly

The situation with housing in Offaly is the best it has been in years, according to several members of the county council.

However, some other councillors strongly disagreed with this perspective, stressing the problems with homelessness and the lack of housing investment in smaller towns and villages.

The councillors made the comments following a presentation on housing by Offaly County Council staff at the council's monthly meeting on Monday, October 21.

During the discussion, Cllrs Peter Ormond (Fianna Fáil) and John Clendennen (Fine Gael) clashed strongly with Cllr Aoife Masterson (Sinn Féin) on some points.

Cllr Aoife Masterson had said housing is the biggest issue in Offaly, and referred to the council's targets for housing as “lacklustre”. She said she was concerned the targets were too low, and that she was “disappointed in the defeatist attitude” of her colleagues. She recommended raising the targets in future.

Cllr Masterson also expressed concern about the reliance on 'turnkey' developments, and the lack of homes allocated to young families, as well as the amount of vacant properties in the county.

Cllrs Ormond and Clendennen referred to Cllr Masterson's comments as “populist”, with Cllr Clendennen saying Cllr Masterson's recent vote against raising the property tax contradicted her wish to provide more funding for housing.

The council receives an update on housing in the county twice a year, in February and October.

In her presentation, Ms Deirdre Hunt told the council that there are currently 524 applications for social housing, 513 for housing assistance payments and 212 for leasing and rental accommodation scheme payments.

In addition, there are 16 families and 38 single people requiring homeless assistance.

A total of three units dedicated to domestic violence support services have now been delivered, and work is ongoing on 17 units at the former Clonamore House Hotel on Arden Road, Tullamore, which will be administered by the charity Sophia and used for regional emergency housing accommodation. Council staff are due to meet with Sophia this week for a briefing on progress with this project.

Mr John Brophy said the council has already reached its target of 68 units under the Housing for All scheme for the year. Taking into account both housing already built and those projected for completion this year, a total of 116 units will be delivered this year.

Mr Brophy said this has been achieved through a combination of council builds, turnkey properties by private developers, and projects by housing bodies.

Regarding retrofits, Mr Brophy recommended that the council aims for an average of €34,000 per project, as a high proportion of costly renovations would result in less projects being completed. He also told the council that approximately €1.7 million had been provided for 2024 housing grants, which includes grants for housing adaptations, mobility aids and housing aid for older persons.

The figures on progress in housing in Offaly were welcomed by the majority of councillors. Council Cathaoirleach Cllr Tony McCormack said this improvement was all the more impressive given that during the two years of Covid, “practically nothing was done.”

Cllr Declan Harvey said the report was the “best housing report he had received in this council in ten years”, but added while a lot had been done, a lot more remained to do.

However, Cllr Fergus McDonnell expressed concern that, when statistics on growth in population are taken into account, it may seem that the county is “going backwards in the number of housing provided”. He noted that smaller towns and villages never seem to get social housing.

Cllr McDonnell also said that there are a “huge amount of people” facing homelessness in the coming months, having been served with eviction notices recently. He highlighted the lack of hostels available in the Midlands, saying people “are being handed out tents. That's not progress”.

Cllr Sean Maher echoed the concerns about the lack of accommodation available in the county, saying that there are currently no properties for rent in Birr, Shinrone, Kilcormac or Banagher.

The problems smaller towns and villages face in attracting investment in housing, particularly from private developers, was widely noted among the councillors, with Cllr Peter Ormond saying that the county council “was the only show in town” for providing housing in these locations.