'We could not get a family house in Carrick or Mohill when we wanted to come back' - Leitrim house shortage

Housing is the most important issue in Leitrim, was the view of all councillors at the latest Carrick-on-Shannon MD. 

Cllr Enda Stenson, said housing is the "biggest issue we face as a local authority and as a nation" adding, "I'm not sure it can be solved."

He stressed: "Local authorities can't provide the houses we need and central government has got to help them get more builds. We also have to encourage private developers to come up with new housing as we did in the early 2000s."

He noted that last week the GAA released a demographic report that showed people were "drifting away from rural Ireland. Four different people rang me from different places and said, 'If we come home, where are there houses? We could not get a family house in Carrick or Mohill when we wanted to come back. We have to got to try and solve that issue. We don't want to see homeless people but we are facing that, if we don't solve this issue."

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He was speaking after Head of housing, Mary Quinn, gave an overview of housing wait lists and delivery in the Carrick municipal district. 

The figure for those waiting for a house in Co. Leitrim is 302 and when HAP and local authority transfers are included, it comes to 578. 

There are 111 households on the Carrick-on-Shannon municipal district list, 93 of which are in the town. 

Housing for All targets were surpassed, she noted, with a target of 139 and a delivery of 144. 59 per cent of the units were one or two bed properties and 41 per cent were three or four bed. 

Ms Quinn said: "We will be looking at assessing the demand for affordable housing and do an expression of interest in the next number of weeks. We are looking at the delivery of service sites to build and await details of any initiatives from the Housing Activation Office in terms of facilitating infrastructure accelerate delivery schemes and have a project in the pipeline for Carrick-on-Shannon."

Cllr Sean McGowan said that central government "has to come up with funding so that we can purchase houses. We need to see private developers building more houses once again. It is the biggest issue that is facing this country at the moment."

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