People Before Profit councillor says eight houses in one small part of the area of Dublin with the longest housing list is unacceptable
Cllr John Lyons visited Darndale today and recorded eight empty houses within ten minutes
Cllr John Lyons said: “With the government refusing to take responsibility for the worst housing crisis in the state’s history, with record numbers nearing 20,000 on Dublin City Council’s housing list and 1338 families with 2886 children living in homeless accommodation in the Dublin area, it is quite shocking to seek so many boarded up houses in one small area of my constituency”.
Cllr John Lyons stated today: “I walked around Darndale this morning and found eight houses lying vacant. I have requested information from Dublin City Council regarding the current status of these houses and what plans we have to turn them around.
“I do know that two of them were due to be ready for new families to move into in January and February this year but to date, its six months later and these houses remain vacant. This isn’t good enough. There are many families in the area and beyond currently living in overcrowded situations who would be very keen to be renting these houses and transforming them into family homes.
“There are currently 5,555 applicants on Dublin City Council’s housing list for Area B, by far the longest waiting list in the city of Dublin. 538 of those applicants have been on the list for more than a decade, so to see any of our existing stock in the area lying idle and empty is unacceptable. We need to see a much quicker turnaround of these voids, and better value for money with less work being contracted out. I will be calling on Dublin City Council officials at our next housing committee in September to begin a process for recruiting more tradespeople in the months ahead and to outline a plan for accelerating the turnaround of all voids in Dublin. The current rate and framework for transforming voids into family homes is too slow and costly”.
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