€18m spent on housing maintenance by Cork City Council in 2025

Cork City Council has spent €18m on housing maintenance so far this year, and is overspending in electrical and heating repairs, data has shown.

Figures were provided by the council at Monday’s monthly meeting to Independent Ireland councillor Noel O’Flynn, who had asked for a report on all expenditure and operational activity undertaken by the authority in relation to housing maintenance this year.

Details he had requested included the total spend, a breakdown of that expenditure, the number of requests addressed, the average and total cost per unit, performance indicators, the number of repeat or follow-up maintenance requests, the level of unaddressed or outstanding maintenance cases, and details of any underspend or overspend.

Data provided showed that, up until the end of August 2025, nearly €18m had been spent.

Broken down, the data showed €1,396,929 was spent on works under the disabled persons grant (DPG) scheme; €9,771,930 for general maintenance; €3,083,694 on the voids programme, and €3,703,884 on the energy efficiency retrofit programme (EERP).

A further breakdown showed that the council spent €5.1m on payroll; €51,795 on consultants; €11.6m on contracts; €711,606 on materials; €472,240 on overheads; €809,731 on plant and machinery, and €72,971 on miscellaneous expenses in the first eight months of the year.

The council’s acting director of housing, Nicky Carroll, explained that the last period for which full details were available in regard to maintenance work by category is the end of Q2 2025, or the end of June.

“The average spend on general maintenance per unit of stock is €1,054 per unit. The total number of maintenance requests closed to the end of Q2 2025 is 7,165. The total number of jobs received is 9,284.”

This means 2,119 jobs were outstanding.

“There are, at present, underspends in pay budgets, while there are overspends in regard to the budgets for electrical and heating repairs,” he added.

Repairs completed up to the end of September include 2,329 plumbing, 1,612 heating, 1,220 electrical, 984 carpentry, 385 roofing/plastering, 198 masonry, 148 disabled persons’ work, and 289 categorised as miscellaneous.

Mr O’Flynn told The Echo: “I am concerned that no information was provided on the time from when the complaint was made to when the issue was repaired.

“I’m getting a lot of complaints from people who have made reports about faults in their houses and are waiting a long time.

“We have a duty as a landlord to ensure there’s a timely turnaround in getting work done, but that doesn’t always happen,” he said.