Graphic: RTÉ News
IT IS taking an average of 44 weeks for Donegal County Council to get social housing units ready for new tenants after they have been vacated, an RTÉ report says.
Figures obtained by RTÉ news show that the time it takes to get a property ready to move in took 44 weeks in 2015, a six-week increase on the previous year (2014) when it was 38 weeks.
However Cork, Roscommon and Kerry are among counties where it does take longer.
Last year the council told Donegal Daily of a range of problems in re-letting homes, with a very high refusal rate among people on social housing waiting lists.
The figures show that the problem is more acute in rural counties when compared to Dublin, where the average time between one family moving out and another moving into a unit is around 13 weeks.
Mayo and Waterford city were also among the councils that turned properties around relatively quickly, said the RTÉ report.
Many of the county councils cited major repair works as a reason for dwellings being vacant for such long periods.
Some county councils said housing units known as voids that were vacant for a long period of time required considerable refurbishment.
Some counties, such as Donegal and Leitrim, also said that there can be a difficulty in re-letting units in rural and isolated locations due to lack of demand.
Funding was also an issue in some counties, which said houses had been left idle up until 2014 when funding became available through the government’s voids scheme.
Homelessness organisations such as the Simon Communities have called for a stocktake system to be implemented as a matter of urgency so that it is known exactly how many units are vacant across the country at any given time.
Spokesperson for the Simon Communities Niamh Randall said the amount of time it is taking to turn properties around was outrageous when you consider there are 90,000 people on the social housing waiting list.
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