Councillor told creating more modular housing as short-term measure would be challenging

CONTINUATION FROM FRONT

“We need to understand this is a very complex issue. We are doing everything we can, people need to understand that. We did have a 20 percent refusal rate for houses offered. We have to look at this in the round, we are doing as much as we can to provide emergency accommodation, but my concern is that we have that number in terms of a refusal rate, yet the accommodation we are offering people is of a very good quality because we are spending a lot of money to ensure that quality. This is a big issue, but I am more concerned we have got such a high refusal rate.”

His comments followed a suggestion from Cllr Gino O’Boyle that people who need emergency accommodation in Sligo should be facilitated using modular housing.

Cllr O’Boyle, People Before Profit, proposed at the recent Council meeting that the Council utilises lands where planning permission has been granted but no works have taken place to erect modular or prefabricated housing for the needs of emergency accommodation as a matter of urgency.

Cllr O’Boyle said the response he received from the local authority suggested Sligo County Council had no land they could use to build modular housing.

Jim Molloy, SCC, told him modular housing operates to the same rules in relation to planning and everything else as regular housing.

“If we went to put modular housing on some of that land, we would still have to go through the same planning process,” he said.

He told Cllr O’Boyle that the project in Doorly Park where modular homes were built to accommodate Ukrainian families displaced by war in their country was not realised using the same rules that the Council would be bound by.

“That was a national scheme led up by the Office of Public Works, they brought all the resources they had into the [Doorly Park] scheme,” Mr Molloy said.

Cllr O’Boyle said many families found themselves in dire straits: “Every day we are getting emails or messages from families who have been given notices to quit. There is no emergency accommodation for them.

“When you get families being refused any type of accommodation it is very hard to deal with that, where are we going to?”

He said he understood that in Sligo some of the emergency accommodation the Council have will not be available after April and May and asked: “So where are we going to put them then?”

He said after the eviction ban was lifted, he expected the Council would be inundated with people looking for accommodation. “I’m sure it is the same for every councillor, we are all getting calls from people needing help. Where are people going to go?

“If we can’t put up modular housing in the short term, what are we to tell people, ‘sorry, the council isn’t doing enough, is that the response we are supposed to give people?”

Mr Molloy said the issue for the Council was that if they were trying to put permanent non-modular houses on sites, they couldn’t put modular houses on the same sites.

“The alternative is that we convert some of the permanent sites into modular sites,” he said.

He added: “The big challenge we have is that we are already trying to advance schemes on the land that we have and if we switch off those schemes, we will have to delay those houses to allow us to build modular homes on that land.”

He said they were trying to source other alternatives for those in need of emergency accommodation and were trying to see if they could extend agreements they already have which are due to expire.

“We are getting Government support to advance those schemes as far as possible and we will give an update on how far we are with that,” he said.

Cllr O’Boyle asked Mr Molloy, “where are we to tell families where they can go? Some are going back and staying with other family members, but you can’t expect that to continue in overcrowded conditions. Is there anywhere we can say we can put them. I’m only saying modular housing because it is a short-term fix.

“If every wee bit of Council land that we have and everything is going on to that land, that’s great for the future, but I am asking about now, where are families supposed to go?”

Mr Molloy said the Council was currently putting them into rented accommodation or in some cases in the very short term that accommodation offered includes hotel bedrooms until they find more suitable accommodation and that is the big struggle.

Commenting on the refusal rate mentioned by the Chief Executive, Cllr O’Boyle replied that the issue he was raising was where families who have been given notices to quit find themselves at the end of that process with nowhere to live. I understand there are people refusing houses and that is unacceptable,” he said.

“People are literally pushing the boundary of the time they are staying and what happens then, they go to court and does the Council step in then and somehow find them somewhere to stay? It’s damaging families with young children; something has to be done.”

Cllr Thomas Healy, Sinn Féin, agreed with his colleague, adding that the problem was “coming down the road in relation to people in rented accommodation”.

He added: “To get other accommodation to move to is almost impossible, it can’t be done. I have families who will be coming to the Council, but we need to know what happens when they come here, because they will be coming.”

He agreed with the CE’s comments in relation to people refusing houses.

Cllr Rosaleen O’Grady said they had to now ask the question why up to 14,000 landlords have left the system which has resulted in a situation where there is no accommodation nationally and locally.

“We have villainised landlords and that’s why they left. We have stopped building housing. We have to be careful what we say and recognise the service that was given,” she said.

She said she was reluctant to see Council housing changed from regular housing to modular as the standard of housing provided by Sligo County Council, when they do build, is second to none.

“When this council does build housing, it is absolutely fabulous.

“We are in a crisis, our population has grown by nearly a million, we have to recognise that, but we also have to be positive. We have to acknowledge what we (SCC) do and we have to talk about what we do,” she said.

Cllr O’Boyle said he was not “in any way” suggesting the council would turn all its housing land into modular housing.

He said his suggestion was very much a short-term suggestion to meet an immediate problem.

He said without landlords the situation would be worse.