Louth social housing vacancy rate falls to 1.55% as council adds 227 homes
A significant programme of energy upgrades was also carried out in Louth during 2025
Louth County Council’s social housing vacancy rate fell to just 1.55% last year, while 227 homes were added to its housing stock, according to new figures published by the National Oversight and Audit Commission (NOAC).
The figures show that the council owned 4,589 social housing properties at the end of 2025, compared with 4,381 at the beginning of the year.
While 19 council homes were sold during the year, none were demolished.
The Louth vacancy rate of 1.55% was below the national rate of 2.44%, which NOAC said was the lowest national vacancy level for directly provided local authority housing since 2015.
However, homes that became vacant in Louth took an average of 23.84 weeks to be re-let, with an average cost of €26,247 per property.
The figures form part of NOAC’s annual assessment of local authority performance across Ireland.
A significant programme of energy upgrades was also carried out in Louth during 2025.
142 local authority homes were retrofitted, with all 142 achieving a B2 BER rating or above. Heat pumps were installed in all 142 properties.
The work is estimated to have delivered annual energy savings of 1,500.8 MWh, alongside a reduction in carbon emissions of 388.6 tonnes.
Nationally, 2,671 local authority homes were retrofitted during 2025. NOAC has warned that the current rate of retrofitting across the country is unlikely to be sufficient to meet the target of upgrading 36,500 local authority properties to B2 BER or equivalent by 2030.
The NOAC figures also provide a snapshot of road investment in Louth.
Some 7.9km of regional roads were strengthened during 2025 at a cost of almost €2.68m, while a further 7.4km were resealed.
On local roads, 12.5km were strengthened at a cost of approximately €3.25m, with another 46.9km resealed at a cost of approximately €1.44m.
Louth also recorded a high level of household access to three-bin waste collection.
The report states that 46,110 households — 93% of all households in the county — availed of a three-bin service at the end of 2025.
That compares with a national figure of 80.52%.
Louth received 2,829 environmental complaints during 2025, while 2,913 complaints were closed during the year. There were 29 complaints remaining open at the end of December.
The litter survey figures, meanwhile, showed 65% of the area surveyed was classified as slightly polluted, 20% as moderately polluted and 12% as significantly polluted. Just 2% was classified as unpolluted or litter free.
The council recorded a €4.46m cumulative surplus in its revenue account at the end of 2025, up from €4.34m at the end of 2024.
Rates collection also increased to 89%, compared with 87% in each of the previous two years.
More than four in five motor tax transactions in Louth were completed online, with 82.89% processed digitally during the year.
Louth’s library service recorded 415,244 items issued to borrowers, while 17,919 people were registered library members.
The NOAC report covers 46 performance indicators across areas including housing, roads, waste, environment, planning, emergency services, libraries, finance and economic development, providing a year-on-year picture of local authority services across the country.