Council’s plan for housing

FINGAL County Council has vowed to continue identifying ways of supporting the broad range of different categories, including senior citizens and those with disabilities, who are in need of social housing support.

The council’s Director of Housing, Margaret Geraghty, said while the local authority would continue to focus on the homeless and those at risk of homelessness, it would continue to look at the different categories of those in need of support and “mold its programme” around them as well.

In 2018, Fingal County Council published its Age Friendly Strategy, which sets out an overview of the ageing population in the county.

“Fingal County Council has to ensure that we provide and build in a lifecycle approach to our housing programme for people who are ageing but want to remain in the community,” she said.  

Ms Geraghty said the council had already identified a number of locations where it could bring forward planning applications to build housing for senior citizens.

“This is not something Fingal County Council has done for a long number of years but it something we want to get started on again,” she said. 

Ms Geraghty cited an example in Mulhudddart, where it was working on a new scheme with the Cluid voluntary housing body, which would see a number of homes built specifically for the older population.

In terms of assisting people with disabilities, a multi-disciplinary steering group with representatives of Fingal County Council, the HSE and other State agencies, has worked to put a plan in place to assist with their needs.

Ms Geraghty said this plan not only looks at people who have a disability that are currently in need of housing, but also considers people who are younger who are still at home but who will require support to live independently in the coming years.

She said people who may have a medical need but not a disability were also considered in the plan. 

“In the region of 7 or 8 per cent of our allocations under new house builds, both social and private, are ring-fenced for people in this category,” she said. 

“Having just come out of a recession, there is a pent-up demand for housing, so we need to mold our housing programme around the different categories of housing support, while continuing to maintain a focus on people who are at risk of homelessness or who are already homeless.”