Seven vacant Donegal houses are being bought by Túath Housing Association to rent to families in need of housing.
In total, Túath aims to purchase and renovate 190 homes across the country. They will then rent the houses to families on Local Authority waiting lists.
A spokesperson for Donegal County Council tells Donegal Daily that currently, there is a waiting list of 980 households in Donegal.
AIB Corporate Banking last month announced that they are to provide initial funding of €15m towards the cost of the purchase and a repair bill to facilitate an initial acquistion programme.
A spokesperson for Túath told Donegal Daily that of the seven houses that are in Donegal; four are in Lifford, two are in Letterkenny, and one is in Ballybofey.
As one of the actions included in the Government’s ‘Rebuilding Ireland Programme’, The Housing Agency was provided with a €70m fund, and the objective is to use this fund to acquire up to 1,600 vacant properties from financial institutions. It has already acquired a large number of houses and apartments, primarily from distressed sales.
The proceeds from the sale of the properties to Túath and other Approved Housing Bodies will then be used again to acquire housing stock and commence the process once more.
Chairman of Túath Séamus Doherty said; “It is essential that more public and voluntary sector homes are provided for those shut out of the housing market. More could be spent, and spent more effectively by channelling housing expenditure, raised via private finance, through housing associations. At a time when we have historically low borrowing rates, the country should be borrowing and building much more than we currently are.”
In Ireland today, there are 8,857 homeless people whilst approximately 80,000 homes across the country lie vacant.
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