Unemployed – but able to build €500,000 home
WEXFORD COUNTY Council receives planning applications for houses that cost hundreds of thousands of euro to build from people who are unemployed.
One member of the local authority said some of the planning applications relate to houses that cost in the region of €500,000 to construct.
Cllr Willie Fitzharris highlighted the fact at last week’s meeting of the local authority’s Joint Policing Committee when questioning a senior representative of the Criminal Assets Bureau about the organisation’s powers.
Cllr Fitzharris, pictured, asked Detective Chief Superintendent Patrick Clavin if issues around the purchase of land and the development of family homes are areas that CAB can investigate. ‘ There seems to be no lengths to what people can actually do,’ he said.
‘ There are applications coming in here to planning for €500,000 houses and in the part where it asks what your profession is ‘unemployed’ is often put down on it,’ he added. In response Chief Supt Clavin said CAB has good powers to deal with property but he added that issues relating to the granting of planning permission is ‘a matter for the local authority’. However, he went on to comment: ‘We are investigating some cases where suspected drug dealers have very expensive houses.’
‘Much more should be done to look behind applications,’ he added.
‘We can take the asset away but I am not sure we are the body that can prevent planning in the first place.’