Reprieve for Carndonagh families facing being left homeless

Five Carndonagh families living in houses leased by Donegal County Council who have been suffering “gross anxiety” after being told they would have to move out before Christmas have been given a reprieve.

The families, including several with children of school-going age, who live in houses in Cherry Avenue, received letters in October from the council telling them that the long-term lease was due to expire today after the owner informed the council the leasing agreement would not be extended.

Local councillor Albert Doherty raised the issue last week, saying the council had been unable to find suitable alternative accommodation since October ahead of the December 14 deadline. He asked the local authority “to pull out all the stops” to help alleviate the concerns of the families.

The Sinn Féin councillor has since confirmed that he has received verbal assurances from the council that the families would be staying in their homes over Christmas and at least until the end of the month.

“It’s a small consolation” that they will be home for Christmas “given the high degree of anxiety, frustration and upset,” they have been experiencing, he said.

The latest figures show there are 592 applicants on the council’s gross housing waiting list for Inishowen, with 123 on the net waiting list. Some 429 applicants are receiving housing assistance payment but remain on the housing list, while 40 tenants who have been approved for a transfer remain accommodated in council social housing.

Raising the issue at the December meeting of the Inishowen Municipal District meeting, Cllr Doherty said the five families had been experiencing “gross anxiety”.

The municipal district's acting area manager of housing and corporate services, Una Cresswell, told the meeting it would not be appropriate to talk about individual long-term leasing cases but she could say that over the past few years many leases have been expiring.

"We do look in advance because it is quite a process. We would look at the properties and the person we have to liaise with such as the property owners as to whether they are actually interested in renewing that lease,” she said.

“In the last year or two for various reasons sometimes they are not (interested) because they want to take the property back and sell it or maybe there are other reasons why they don't want to do it.

"In addition to that when we look at renewing property leases obviously there are other things to consider like defective concrete blocks, if the house is suitable to take over for the next few years. So there are all sorts of factors.

“We try to renew them [the leases] for ten years, but sometimes we can't. I have been working continuously to try to renew or find solutions. The people in the long-term leases are our tenants and we have to rehouse them."

She added the council has had to give back long-term leases throughout Inishowen and reallocate, so the issue has been ongoing for the past year or so.

Cathaoirleach of the municipal district Cllr Paul Canning said that in relation to long leases, it might be disingenuous not to recognise the fact that council staff had been working on affected houses.

"I have had a few in the Newtowncunningham area and I know the council has been working on them.”

Fine Gael councillor Johnny McGuinness said that going forward the council should be looking at negotiations taking place one year out from the end of a lease in order to stop this type of anxiety from taking place.

"It would give time if a solution or agreement hasn't been reached with the homeowner that a plan B could be initiated at that stage rather than at the end of the lease," he said.

Donegal County Council has not responded to a request for comment.