Wide-ranging discussion on housing issues in the county

Cllr Sean McDermott said that "coming into winter with frost and snow in our housing estates, that could be a problem if you don't have the full complement of staff looking after that situation. We need to look at this and do something about it."

He was speaking after head of finance, Vincent Dwyer stated that the housing maintenance budget was increased by over 10% and income from housing stocks and housing rent is expected to rise by 5% as more houses come on stream, he said.

Cllr Padraig Fallon asked if there will be an increase in maintenance/outdoor staff with Cllr Des Guckian saying that he believed the budget of €3.6m for Housing, Local Government and Heritage should be doubled. 

Cllr Felim Gurn said that "because we are not building enough houses and there is a huge increase in rents; I think in Leitrim it's 12%."

He said the turnaround time for houses is not fast enough and that landlords are "selling up and putting people out so houses need to be turned around faster and inflation means the cost of doing the water on houses is major too."

He also said that he has received calls from people who have moved into an accommodation in the past six months to a year saying they are having issues such as "leaking in showers, ceilings, radiators and doors."

Story continued in next week's Leitrim Observer...