Council should evict tenants if they are in prison, says FF councillor

A Cork city councillor has said the council should evict prisoners, instead of holding houses for them while they are incarcerated.

Fianna Fáil councillor Terry Shannon, who represents the Cork city south-east ward said: “There are a number of units that are being held vacant because occupants are in jail, how many I’m not sure, but I do know of a few,” he said.

Mr Shannon stressed that he was only talking about cases where the prisoner was a single person, rather than where the person imprisoned was a member of a family living in council accommodation.

“This is not where families are involved, just because the father or the young fella is a scut, you can’t bring that on the mother or the children,” he said.

“We have had cases in Mahon where people were in jail and the house was kept for them, and they came back to it, because they were tenants and they paid the rent and there was no tenancy agreement broken.” 

Mr Shannon said he believed that prisoners were already accommodated and should not have two simultaneous homes paid for by the State.

Asked what should be done for hypothetical newly released prisoners who had lost their council homes because of this proposal and were now on the council’s homeless figures, he said national legislation would be needed.

“It is an issue for the council because we are the housing authority, you are correct, it is lumped onto us, and I think there has to be a review of national legislation,” he said.

“We have a large housing list and the vast majority on it are very decent people,. But I do feel that if someone is in jail for a significant period of time, it’s not on.”