Concern over Cork County Council's ranking on housing league table

Disbelief and incredulity were the most common responses expressed by councillors to a poor ranking for the construction of social homes on Cork County Council land when reports were discussed during this week’s meeting of the local authority.

Bantry-based Independent Ireland councillor Danny Collins raised the matter as he proposed a motion seeking answers from the executive about the league table which had been published by housing minister James Browne.

“This league table showed Cork County Council lying 25th out of 31 councils in the country,” he said.

“The figures included new-build units that were either directly built by local authorities and approved housing bodies or bought in turn-key conditions by local authorities and an approved housing body, they also include Part 8 [housing developments initiated by the local authority itself].”

He pointed out that the league table referred to the performance of the local authorities in housing delivery in the three-year period, 2022-24.

He said that he intended no criticism of the council’s housing department, as he said they were doing “great work”.

“Where I come from in West Cork, we do see a lot of houses going up at the moment — but still, can we see an improvement in the league table?

“To be quite honest, lying 25th out of 31 local authorities doesn’t look great for us — this is a 70% [of target] delivery where the national overall delivery is 85%.”

His brother, and fellow Independent Ireland councillor, John Collins, who is based in Bandon, referred to a visit he had with a constituent in the town who was able to point to three boarded-up council properties that had been vacant for between 12-18 months.

Fine Gael East Cork councillor Michael Hegarty described the figures and the media commentary which had followed as “quite disturbing, really, as we’re the second largest local authority in the country”.

Cathal Rasmussen, the Labour Party councillor in Cobh, said that he also had questions about the numbers.

“I don’t understand the make-up of the figures, and I’m slightly bothered by them because over the last two or three years at our regular meetings [of the housing committee] I don’t recall us having a major discussion about being way behind target, because if they were we’d be have been having a lot bigger discussion before now.”

In a response, the council director of services Michael Lynch said the recently-published figures focused on the percentage of target rather than the number of dwellings constructed.

“In the eight-year period from 2017 to 2024, 3,411 dwellings have been provided, and 1,304 in the three-year period, 2022-24,” he said.