Donegal Sinn Féin -- Building an Ireland of Equals

Stranorlar Housing crisis must be addressed - Cllr Cora Harvey

Published: 4 December, 2009

Stranorlar Housing crisis must be addressed - Cllr Cora Harvey

Stranorlar Sinn Fein County Councillor Cora Harvey has described the housing crisis in the Stranorlar Electoral Area as totally unacceptable and said that urgent action needs to be taken.

Cllr Harvey states:

"This situation is totally out of hand and I am sick of it. The waiting list is huge and there are simply not enough houses to meet the demand. I have now requested a meeting with the County Manager to try and alleviate some of the problems faced by the Housing Section team in the Stranorlar area.

There are only 14 available dwellings and a waiting list of 500. Furthermore there are council houses lying vacant that are not being allocated because of staffing issues, because the resources are not there to process the applications and to make the relevant assessments".

"There are a certain amount of houses ready for allocation in the Ballybofey area for 6 months, I could fill them tomorrow but that's not my job. There is a process and there are limited staff members to complete that process. I feel as a public representative for the Stranorlar area that I have a duty to highlight this issue and demand that resources be put in the Housing Section. Its ridiculous what is going on and I hold the Government firmly to account for slashing jobs in local authorities and central Government finance. At the end of the day it's the people who are suffering"

Cllr Harvey continues:

"Houses lying empty in this day and age should not be tolerated, look at the knock on effect, it is actually costing money in terms of rent supplement and the Council is losing money in terms of rents.

As a public representative it is difficult to say to people that they actually don't have a hope of getting a council house in the near future because there is none, there is difficulties in transfers also because of policy".

"There are many hardship stories and we as councillors feel useless because of cutbacks and staff shortages. We cannot serve our constituents. We have new mums living in over crowed houses, young families flitting from rented house to house, people who gave up their council house for very personal reasons and now find themselves in rented accommodation for years with little prospect of being re-housed.

This is a County issue but in particular a problem for Stranorlar due to the large number on the waiting list".

ENDS