Council sets record straight on vacant housing numbers

The council had pushed back against recently published department figures, saying the number of vacant homes owned by the Cavan County Council is much less than the reported figure once those being refurbished and in the process of being let are factored in.

More than a dozen houses have been re-let since the Department figures, believed to have been recorded at the start of the year, showed 81 empty homes on the local authority’s books.

As of last week, there are now 66 vacant homes within the council’s property stock, 28 of which are currently being “worked on”, 27 are undergoing refurbishment, two are in the process of being re-let, and seven more are out for tender.

The update was provided by Director of Services, Lynda McGavigan, at the July monthly meeting of Cavan County Council this week.

In 2024 the number of houses re-let by the council was 61, and the authority is on course to match, if not surpass that this year.

The response she gave followed a motion by Independent Ireland’s Shane P. O’Reilly who wanted her to address the perceived “delays” in returning council houses back to use.

He began by discussing the number of people on the social housing list versus those in receipt of a Housing Assistance Payment.

Cllr O’Reilly added then that the recently published figures, then highlighted by Sinn Féin, had created “angst” and a “false narrative” around the council’s ability to deliver. “We need to get the figures correct,” he said.

Sinn Féin’s Stiofán Conaty said the numbers came about as a result of a question posed by the party’s spokesperson for Housing, Deputy Eoin Ó Broin.

He thanked the council for their continued work on housing delivery, but if anything, he suggested that any difficulties come about as a direct result of successive governments failure to fund national housing programmes.

Fine Gael’s Trevor Smith asked that the Strategic Policy Committee on Housing be presented with regular updates, something with which Fianna Fáil’s Patricia Walsh agreed. “We’ve come a long way from boarded up houses,” she opined.

She added that empty council properties are being turned around in “quick time”.

Ms McGavigan informed the meeting that most of the delays happened in cases where the council had to carry out significant upgrades to a property, and where obtaining the required skilled trades had become more difficult. She said that several of the main contractors in Cavan were already tied up working on other council-led housing projects.

Last year the council delivered 212 homes, including turnkey new builds, and that number is projected to be above 300 between 2025-26.

The council is engaged in “negotiations”, as Cllr O’Reilly had asked, with property owners and developers about obtaining more new build properties for the purpose of social housing, and a pipeline of other projects to come.

The vacant property figure published served as a snapshot of a “moment in time”, though she accepted that, contained within that figure, is set of houses that require more extensive works, and that these had been “put on the back burner for now” with other works taking priority.

Cllr O’Reilly said that it wasn’t always the case that Cavan had such as good vacant property turnaround rate.

At one stage the situation had become “frustrating” to watch.

In response to Fine Gael’s Winston Bennett asking about the offer of housing being refused, Ms McGavigan said this too is “well down” on before.