Cork City Council cuts social housing turnaround times but vacancies remain high

Cork City Council is turning around social homes between tenancies faster and cheaper than most of Ireland, but its vacancy rate of these homes is among the highest in the country.

There were nearly 350 social homes vacant in Cork city at the end of last year, more than any local authority other than Dublin city, according to the National Oversight and Audit Committee (NOAC)’s 2025 Performance Indicators report.

The report found that it took Cork City Council an average of 23 weeks to re-let a social housing unit once it was vacated last year, down from more than 33 weeks the previous year.

This sharp reduction makes their performance far better than the national average time of just over 32 weeks.

In 2025, Cork City Council re-tenanted 216 homes, 21% more than the previous year.

Cost increased from €18k to €21.5k, though this was again way below the national average letting cost in 2025 of more than €31k.

The council told NOAC that the commencement of a programme where council staff and contractors collaborate to turn around vacant housing units as quickly as possible was responsible for the improvement in its turnaround time.

However, during the same 12 month period, Cork city’s vacancy rate increased to among the highest in the county.

Across Ireland, 2.44% of social housing was not tenanted, a figure which has decreased each year since 2022, a trend NOAC said was “extremely encouraging and reflects significant progress.” 

They welcomed that 12 local authorities reported vacancy rates below 2% compared to seven in 2024 but said that “challenges remain in some areas”, including Cork city.

At the end of 2025, Cork city had a vacancy rate of 3.19%, amounting to 347 properties, the seventh highest vacancy rate in Ireland and an increase from 3.05% in 2024.

Cork County Council saw a dramatic reduction from a 4.78% vacancy rate in 2024 to 2.66% last year, amounting to around 235 homes vacant, though this figure was still slightly worse than the national average.

The NOAC spokesperson said: “Given the ongoing demand for social housing, local authorities should take all reasonable measures to ensure that housing stock is brought back into use promptly and utilised as effectively as possible to meet the needs of those on waiting lists.”

It comes as last year, The Echo revealed that of the 342 city council homes vacant at the time, 97 had been empty for between 12 months and 24 months, and 99 longer than two years.

The council said at the time that this was due to a deliberate policy whereby the council “prioritises the return of properties with the least work required, with the aim of returning the maximum number of houses each year”.