13 vacant social homes returned to active use in Leitrim in 2022

The Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Darragh O’Brien TD, has published figures showing Leitrim County Council brought 13 vacant social homes back into active use under the Voids Programme, recouping €143,000 from the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage through the Voids Programme in 2022. The Voids Programme supports local authorities in preparing vacant homes for re-letting.

Minister O’Brien said: “Apart from the obvious advantages of meeting demand for social housing, the return of these 13 vacant homes in Leitrim has a positive impact on communities and avoids vacant homes becoming run down and derelict in some instances and the source of anti-social behaviour. 

“We are now progressively shifting to a position of planned maintenance of social housing stock to ensure minimal turnaround and re-let times for social housing stock.”

In 2022, local authorities recouped almost €29 million in funding for stock improvement programmes for the refurbishment of vacant local authority-owned social housing. Of the €28.9 million, €3.6 million supported the transition to planned maintenance and included funding towards stock condition surveys.

Nationally in 2022, 2,307 vacant social homes were brought back into active use in 2022 under the Voids Programme. This is just above the anticipated figure of 2,273 vacant social homes, indicating that the intensive work in 2020 and 2021 by local authorities in this area has reduced the number of vacant social homes.