540 join county’s housing waiting list

In the past year, the council has approved 1,194 applicants.

This year to date, it has built 10 homes and has a target of acquiring 211 more through purchases from private buyers and developers.

Mr O’Grady said he was not blaming the county council for the housing crisis, but said the Government had to provide more money to tackle the issue.

“Unless there’s a huge increase in volume of houses being built this list won’t get shorter soon,” he said.

“We now have 220 families on the list for over 10 years. More and more people spending longer times waiting for houses.”

The report showed there were 512 applicants on the waiting list for the last seven to 10 years, 517 waiting five to seven years and 1,202 from three to five years.

A further 1,072 have been on the list for one to three years.

Councillors spent some time debating the report which was given to Mr O’Grady by Maurice Manning, the council’s director of housing.

It showed that there were 92 people officially classed as homeless on the waiting list. Some of these are living on the street or in emergency accommodation, but the report did not give a breakdown of those numbers.

inn Féin councillor Melissa Mullane said it was “shocking” that so many homeless people still had not been given council accommodation.

Mr O’Grady also asked for the number of disabled people on the waiting list.

The breakdown showed that 155 applicants had either an intellectual or mental disability.

A further 237 were classed as having a physical disability, while 46 had, what was described as, a sensory disability.

The report stated that 53 applicants were on the disability list, but for ‘exceptional medical or compassionate reasons’.

Mr O’Grady said it was vital that those with disability issues were given second priority to those who were classified as homeless.

He also said there was an unacceptably high percentage of people with disabilities still on the waiting list.

Fianna Fáil councillor Gearóid Murphy said he totally agreed with those sentiments.

The report did not state how long those classed with disabilities had been waiting to be housed.

Mr O’Grady also said the acquisition of private homes and turnkey houses from developers was too slow.

Independent councillor Danny Collins, meanwhile, said it was completely unacceptable that so many people were waiting years to get a proper home.

“I think when we look at this in 12 months’ time the picture will be even darker,” said Mr O’Grady.

Councillors previously raised concerns about the large number of people who are single and on the waiting list, as the council is not building enough one or two-bed homes for them.