Donegal Sinn Féin TDs Deputy Pearse Doherty and Deputy Pádraig Mac Lochlainn today slammed the government for failing to resource local authorities and allowing public homes to lie empty in the middle of a housing emergency.
Their comments come as FOI data released to Sinn Féin show 155 Council Homes are currently vacant across Donegal with 82 houses boarded up for 12 months or more.
Donegal Doherty said there is nothing more insulting to those impacted by the housing crisis and the defective concrete block crisis than the sight of a perfectly good home left empty.
He added “155 Council Homes are currently vacant across Donegal and more than half of these have been boarded up for more than a year.
“Each of these homes should have a family living in them.
“I am sick and tired of the government’s excuses and broken promises. They try to blame everyone but themselves.
“The reality is that this is an issue because government do not provide enough funding to maintain homes and they do not provide enough funding to return them to use.
“Families in Donegal are crying out for homes while perfectly good houses have been left to rot.
“We know that this causes anti-social behaviour and dumping. They stigmatise decent communities and for people in Donegal they are a constant reminder of the government’s failures.
“Donegal County Council should be funded to do their job. Instead, red-tape coupled with underfunding leave homes empty for years”.
Deputy Mac Lochlainn also slammed the situation.
He said there are at least 2,656 vacant council homes across the state right now, and over 750 of these are lying unused, boarded up, for over a year.
And he added “These empty homes are a constant reminder of the failures of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael.
“If they cared about our communities, those with defective concrete blocks, about families and about children growing up in hotels, these homes would not be empty for years on end.
“It is unacceptable that people with defective blocks struggle to find temporary accommodation, or to pay for a mobile home, while perfectly good houses are boarded up and empty.
“That there are young people boarding planes to start their lives elsewhere when they could be starting lives in these empty homes.
“That there are children walking home from school today past empty houses to the hotel room they share with their entire family.
“I can guarantee that a Sinn Féin government would not stop until long-term vacancy in Council homes had been ended.
“We would do everything to ensure that nobody watches homes rot while they cannot access secure accommodation.”
