Shame of Galway City Council’s boarded-up houses

Galway City Tribune – It’s a tale of two cities . . . hundreds of homeless people are housed in emergency accommodation at a time when local authority homes are boarded-up.

Some 60 Galway City Council houses are currently vacant, including 10 long-term ‘voids’ that require major refurbishment. Five of them are Traveller-specific homes in Fána Glas, Ballybane and four of them are in Sliabh Bán, also in Ballybane, and were built just a decade ago. A number of them are boarded-up.

How the same houses looked in 2009 before they were first occupied.

This is despite the latest homeless figures showing some 496 people, including 209 children, were in emergency accommodation in the West of Ireland during July.

Galway City Council said the issue of ‘voids’ or vacant social houses arises constantly as there is a natural turnover in tenancies for various reasons. Dermot Mahon, Senior Executive Officer with the Council, said that excluding 10 long-term voids, there are currently 50 vacant homes from its stock of 2,312 (2%). Around 20 of these 50 vacant properties have been offered to tenants. “They will be occupied in the coming weeks,” he said.

The shame of Galway’s boarded-up homes comes as the city’s students prepare to demonstrate in Eyre Square to highlight the chronic accommodation crisis. Around 250 students from GMIT and NUIG will ‘camp-out’ in the Square from 6pm to highlight the increasing strain on student accommodation.

Karen Golden, CEO of Galway Simon, said: “We urgently need new social and affordable housing to come on stream.”
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