Council housing report needs officer to explain content

HOUSING reports are all well and good but when a housing officer isn’t present to go through the figures with county councillors it is “a bit ridiculous”.

That was the view of councillors at the Blarney Macroom municipal district meeting. Cllr Des O’Grady (SF) said it was clearly stated at the last meeting that a housing officer should attend with the report.

His viewpoint was wholeheartedly agreed with by Cllr Bob Ryan (FF) who said it was fine to get a housing report but there wasn’t anybody from housing present to go through it. “Really, it’s a bit ridiculous,” he said.

“This is just throwing documents and figures at us but somebody should be here to back up the figures,” he said.

In the report, it is stated there are 355 one bedroom homes, 441 two bedroom, 185 three bedroom, and 53 four bedroom and three five bedroom. Regarding vacant houses it stated that the number of casual vacancies was one and there were two long term voids.

For the Rental Accommodation Scheme (RAS0 and Housing Assistance Payment (HAP), in the Blarney Macroom district there are 53 and there are 153 HAP households in the district.

Under the Housing Construction Programme, for pre-construction, at the first phase at Fairfield in Masseytown in Macroom there are seven units under construction which started in November 2017 with the estimated completion time of November 2018. For phase two at the same place, there are 25 listed with the Housing Dept considering the transfer of this land to AHB (Anvers Housing Association Ltd).

The three page report had plenty of figures but councillors present were clearly not happy an officer wasn’t present to “fill in the blanks.”

Cllr Ted Lucey (FG) said the matter should be deferred until the next meeting so that an officer from housing is present. “We need a person from housing here to explain all of this to us. We, as councillors, are dealing with housing queries day in and day out.”

Cllr Michael Creed (FG) said at their southern meeting they receive a report from housing and can ask questions at that forum. Cllr O’Grady (SF) said they can only put forward questions at this forum every three months. “And by then those figures might be out of date,” he said.