Mayfield Workers’ Party Councillor Ted Tynan has described the situation where over 500 local authority flats and houses remain empty in Cork City at a time of housing crisis as a “no brainer”.
Speaking at tonight’s (Monday) meeting of Cork City Council, Cllr. Tynan said that with 8,000 people on Cork City Council’s housing list it simply made no sense to have hundreds of homes boarded up at considerable cost to the local authority. He also raised the ongoing problem with the faulty district heating system in Mayfield
“People may not realise that Cork City Council is paying out hundreds of thousands of euro every year to rent out the steel shuttering used to secure the empty homes. In 2012 the council paid over €175,000 to a private company to hire these steel shutters. This figure continues to rise. At the same time there is a hidden cost to the council in tackling vandalism, illegal dumping and other forms of anti-social behaviour which are encouraged when an area looks neglected”, said Cllr. Tynan.
The Workers’ Party councillor said that the City Council was paying for neglect and the money used in shuttering, security and tackling anti-social behaviour should instead be used to make good the empty homes. “This simple act”, said Cllr. Tynan, “could create badly needed building jobs, reduce the housing list, improve the look of many areas and actually increase the revenue of the City Council through rent”.
Cllr. Tynan said that the government had become ideologically blinkered against anything progressive, viewing everything purely on grounds of immediate cost rather than weighing up the benefits of a scheme. “They would rather leave the 500 homes boarded up and pay for them to remain derelict than invest in the future because the whole culture of austerity has infected their thinking. They simply refuse to see the obvious”, said the Workers’ Party Councillor
Concluding, Cllr. Tynan appealed to the City Manager for urgent action to deal with the ongoing problems with the district heating system at Glenamoy Lawn and Ardbhaile, saying it was causing serious hardship for many residents who were paying for heat they were not getting from the system.