Councillor hits out as town labelled 'no-go area'

Seamus Enright A local county councillor has hit out at comments made by a fellow elected member who described the town of Bailieborough as sounding like a "no-go area" when the issue of vacant council properties were discussed at their monthly meeting last week. Fine Gael's Sean McKiernan jumped to the east Cavan town's defence declaring: "I don't like the image of no-go areas being portrayed. I am proud of my town and the people of Bailieborough are proud of their town too." The war of words occurred as the executive were asked to give an update to elected members on vacant properties in the town. Director for Services Joe McLoughlin told the meeting there were 160 council houses in the town and of that 21, or 13%, are currently vacant. There are also 78 people currently on the council housing list. McLoughlin added that the average time for a property under council control to remain vacant was between five weeks and two years. He said there was a "bigger issue" regarding vacant properties in some housing estates in the town than elsewhere in the county and said there were a "plethora" of issues that exacerbated the problem. Examples he gave were the state in which some houses were left by previous tenants, the cost of repairs, applicants refusing houses offered to them, and an anti-social element amongst some residents. He said the result was that living in some areas was less attractive than others. Mr McLoughlin stressed that anti-social behavior applied to a only a very small "minority" of residents, but even still, it had an affect on the council being able to find occupiers for certain properties. This prompted Fianna Fáil's Gerry Murray to comment that the town and areas of it sounded like "no go areas". Mr McLoughlin again stressed the fact that tenants involved in anti-social behaviour applied to only a small minority, and denied this amounted to the areas affected being branded as "no go" zones.