Local Councillor, Charlie O’Connor, has called on Council Management to continue to take every action possible to deal with the Council’s Housing List. He raised the matter at the monthly meeting of South Dublin County Council and was responding to confirmation that at the end of January 2020, there were 6,857 on the Council’s Social Housing List of which 587 households were registered as homeless. He asked the CEO if the Council was working on a submission to present to the incoming Minister for Housing in respect of the Housing/Homeless crisis in our County.
On that point, the Chief Executive confirmed that officials from the Housing Department provide regular formal reports and ongoing updates to the Department on all aspects of Housing provision, management and operations.
In response to further questions by Charlie O’Connor, the Council’s CEO stated that: “The level of social housing need in the County as outlined above continues to be a major challenge facing this Council and increasing housing supply is a primary solution. We continue to increase housing supply with our social housing build, acquisition and leasing programmes including through Part V delivery and collaboration with Approved Housing Bodies, Additional housing options are also provided through the RAS and HAP schemes. In addition, proposals for significant housing delivery on large Council owned sites at Killinarden, Belgard Square North, Kilcarbery, Clonburris and Rathcoole are progressing and will form a major part of future housing supply in the County. Additional opportunities for further housing delivery continue to be explored where possible through exisiting landbank, possible land acquisition, turnkey house purchase and other initiatives.”
According to Charlie O’Connor, Housing remains a huge issue and challenge and added that it must remain a priority issue for the Council.
