Council urged to build more social housing in rural Inishowen

Donegal County Council has been urged to make more efforts to develop social housing in rural parts of Inishowen which are suffering from population decline.

The issue has been raised by Cllr Martin McDermott who said there are “serious issues” with the lack of houses being built in rural areas as the council and the Department of Housing “don’t want to build houses in rural Ireland”. 

Speaking at the April meeting of Inishowen Municipal District, he said areas like Glengad, Malin Head, Urris and Carrowmenagh “can’t get 12 young fellas under ten years of age to play football”.

He warned that unless there are efforts to drive the building of houses in rural areas “we won’t have the schools, we won't have the community centres, we won't have the football clubs”.

He also expressed concern that there has been little progress on Specific Instance (SI) houses from the council over the “last six or seven years”.

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The SI scheme involves applicants who sign over a plot of land to the local authority and in turn a low-cost house is provided on the site. 

Cllr McDermott said there is “no will within the council” to build SI houses and that none “have been built in Inishowen for years”. He said SI houses are being built in other counties. 

“We decide we are doing them or we decide we aren’t doing them,” he said.

The Fianna Fáil councillor said councillors need to drive the building of social housing in rural areas. “Unless we drive this, the council won't drive it,” he said.

The meeting was told the council is reviewing the SI applications.