Galway County Council faces €10m bill to refurbish housing stock

A staggering €10 million is to be borrowed by Galway County Council to spend on refurbishing their stock of local authority houses over the next five years.

And that led to a suggestion this week that the cash-strapped Council ‘get rid’ of some of the housing stock in an effort to cut down on maintenance costs.

Director of Services for Housing Michael Owens told a meeting of Tuam Municipal Council this week that the Council own 2,400 houses across the county and that they have received an allocation of €275,000 from the Department.

But he explained that this would not cover the cost of refurbishment but would go towards servicing a capital loan of €10 million which the Council would have to borrow.

Mr Owens told the meeting that they would have to ascertain what works would need to be carried out and this would involve embarking on ‘a stock survey’.

He went on to say that the €10 million that would be borrowed would be in addition to the €8 million redevelopment of the Gilmartin Road estate in Tuam which commenced a couple of weeks ago.

A number of councillors expressed shock at the amount of money that was required to both carry out the survey of local authority houses to determine what works were required and complete the repairs that were necessary.

Remarking on the amount of money being spent on the refurbishment of Council houses, Cllr Tom McHugh (FG) quipped that he was sorry that didn’t apply for one himself back the years.

But he said that given that the Council owns so many houses, they have an obligation to carry out the necessary repairs to the appropriate standard.

Chairman of Tuam Municipal Council, Cllr Donagh Killilea (FF) was of the view, however, that the local authority should dispense with some of their properties.

“I think that we should get rid of some of our housing stock and sell them off. We would be saving a considerable amount of money in the long run,” he added.

The meeting was told that Council-owned houses in the Parkmore and Tirboy estates in Tuam would benefit from the expenditure that will go towards essential repairs.

This was welcomed by Cllr Karey McHugh (Ind) who said that the survey of repairs that needed to be carried out was essential. She said that consideration had to be given to the age and condition of some of the properties and to ensure that they were kept up to standard.