Cork City Council received 10,000 maintenance requests in six months

Cork City Council received 10,000 maintenance requests in the first six months of this year, according to a Freedom of Information (FOI) response given to a Cork TD.

Between January 1 and July 17, the local authority, which currently has 10,968 social housing properties, received a total of 10,171 housing maintenance requests.

Those requests consisted of 3,533 in the north west area, 2,379 in the north east area, and 4,259 in the south.

The figures were released by Cork City Council in response to an FOI request by Sinn Féin TD for Cork North Central, Thomas Gould.

Plan for housing maintenance 

Reacting to the figures, Mr Gould called on the Government to implement Sinn Féin’s plan for social housing maintenance.

“Sinn Féin passed a motion on housing maintenance in the Dáil this year,” he said.

“The Government didn’t oppose, this but they have no intention of implementing it. It is vitally important that we see change in housing maintenance. People are left in cold, damp and unsafe homes because of a lack of housing maintenance.

“Cork City Council is only responsible for 11,000 homes. That they received 10,000 requests in six months highlights how bad this situation is.”

Mr Gould said that he had been contacted by a constituent who had had no hot water for 12 weeks, while another constituent, an older man, had been waiting 16 months for the council to replace his kitchen sink.

“These people are tenants, and the council is their landlord but they have no rights,” Mr Gould claimed.

“It is time to start moving towards bringing local authorities under the RTB and giving council tenants the same rights as other tenants.

“The long-term health conditions of living in council housing that is in poor condition has been well-documented but it is still happening now.

“Everyone, from academics to the European Commission, has warned that this is damaging children and older people, but this government has failed completely to fund local authorities to resolve maintenance issues,” he said.

Council response 

A spokesperson for Cork City Council said it is currently responsible for 10,968 social housing properties across the city.

“The 10,000 service requests referred to capture the full range of service requests logged for any and all city council owned properties, under different categories e.g. plumbing, heating, carpentry, etc, ranging from minor to more significant,” they said.

“As a result, a single property could result in multiple service requests being logged within a particular period. As such, the number of service requests does not directly correlate with the number of city council-owned social housing units.

“The overall number of service requests logged would also include those requests which fall within the remit of tenant responsibility,” the council spokesperson said.

A spokesperson for the Department of Housing said it was currently transitioning from a response based on repair and maintenance as problems arise, to a strategic and informed planned approach to the management and maintenance of local authority social housing stock.

They added that nearly €200 million per annum of exchequer funding is being provided to local authorities under stock improvement programmes, adding that the management and maintenance of housing stock “are matters for each individual local authority”.

“Local authority officials and elected members have an important role in making adequate budgetary provisions for housing repairs and cycle management, utilising the housing rental income available to them as part of the annual budgetary process,” the spokesperson said.