South Dublin County Council gets €2 million to put vacant homes back in use

South Dublin County Council has been awarded over €2 million to cut the 19-week delay in refurbishing disused houses.

Council’s all over the country must rectify problems such as mould, heating issues or damaged windows before the unit can be re-allocated.

Less than a third of maintenance requests are being carried out however, which a local councillor says is adding to the delays.

Fianna Fail Councillor Shane Moynihan says he hopes this national plan will help get tenants back into these houses sooner.

“In this overall pot of funding, there is €40 million for local authorities across the country to get those houses back into use,” he said.

“What is interesting is that South Dublin County Council has the second largest allocation of all the local authorities nationally, so there’s just over €2 million available to South Dublin County Council to draw down to try and bring down the number of voids that it has and to get them back into use.”

Mr Moynihan said the number of disused houses in the South Dublin County Council area is about 100.