Bad tenants cost Council €2.2 million

Bad tenants are costing Galway County Council more than €2 million in repairs and maintenance each year, it has been revealed.

The local authority has put aside almost €2.2 million of their reduced budget for local authority and Traveller accommodation repairs.

It has been described as “a crying shame” that so much money is being spent on house repairs when rural roads are in such a state of disrepair.

The Chairman of Galway County Council, Cllr Pete Roche said that he was in disbelief when he saw the figure that was required to carry out repairs last year and what is budgeted for the year ahead.

He said that tenants who wreck houses and then seek alternative accommodation should not be tolerated by Galway County Council.

Cllr Roche said that such an amount of money could be easily used for road maintenance and repairs rather than going into undoing damage caused by local authority tenants.

Galway County Council are setting aside almost €2.2 million for repairs to their stock of houses in the county. Much of the damage caused is by tenants who have little regard for where they are being accommodated.

At the moment there are dozens of boarded up Council houses across the county with the vast majority of them being in the Tuam and Ballinasloe areas.

As it stands there are 47 local authority houses in the Tuam area in need of major refurbishment as tenants were accused of wrecking the properties.

And Galway County Council officials are being urged not to rent out houses to those tenants who have a history of allowing their dwellings fall into a state of disrepair.

It was revealed recently by a senior official that Galway County Council were in the process of compiling a history of tenants who occupy their houses.

Galway County Council has 604 housing units in the Tuam Municipal District. At the moment six houses are vacant and ready to be occupied, 14 are vacant and require some work, there are two in a state of dereliction and 47 in need of major refurbishment.

Cllr Roche said that if there was evidence of a tenant causing wilful damage to a house, they should be evicted, knocked off the housing list and only considered for local authority housing if they paid for the damage they caused.

“We have so many homeless and so many houses boarded up. It is just not right. I have people coming to me on a weekly basis asking to get one of these houses and they are willing to do them up,” he explained.