Wicklow Sinn Féin candidates for Bray, Cllr Mick Ryan, Cllr Dermot O’Brien, and Denise Cahill have hit out strongly against the failure of the Fianna Fail and Fine Gael led Council in Wicklow who have allowed the Taoiseach Simon Harris’s government off the hook over its failure to address the issue of vacant and boarded up houses in Bray and across the county of Wicklow.
Arguing that local Fianna Fail and Fine Gael Cllrs. were more concerned with the rotation of power amongst themselves on Wicklow County Council than fighting for the people of the county, the Sinn Féin team stated that the FF and FG Cllrs. used their positions to ensure that the Council did not say or do anything as a body that would draw attention to, or embarrass the Simon Harris led government over the crisis they have caused in housing.
Funding is needed to allow local authorities to develop the capacity to carry out badly needed repairs and upkeep on houses to allow the homes to relet as soon as possible. This can only be done by the recruitment of teams of tradespeople that could carry out work at the Councils direction at short notice when needed, as was the case in the past, before FF and FG cut funding.
Cllr Mick Ryan said:
“We are in the midst of a chronic housing shortage. It is the number one political challenge for the government. A whole generation have been affected by the mess that this government has created in housing.
And incredibly when my party colleague John Brady TD questioned the Secretary General of the Department of Housing at a meeting of the Public Accounts Committee late last year, he was told that there were approx. 2,000 vacant and boarded up local authority houses across the state. 145 of which are in Wicklow. Some of which have been left vacant for up to two to three years.
This is an outrage when we have families all across this county, nowhere more so than in Bray where there are more than 50 homes boarded up. We need to see a focussed and resourced Council policy towards reletting properties as soon as possible.
This can only be achieved through government support and commitment, something that is currently sadly lacking. The Council here in Wicklow no longer has sufficient numbers of full-time staff to get the work completed, instead they are forced to rely on the private sector.
Simon Harris needs to direct his government to invest in our local authorities, we need to see investment in frontline workers – we need to see more tradespeople, more plumbers, painters, electricians, and carpenters. Teams who would be able to carry out this work at a fraction of the cost, who would be able to go in short notice to carry out repairs as needed.
This won’t happen though until we end the current cosy cartel and get a team of Councillors in there who are not afraid to make demands of the government on behalf of the people of Wicklow.”
Cllr Dermot O’Brien said:
“When we talk about vacant and boarded up houses, we are not just talking about empty shells, they are potential homes, sanctuaries of safety and security to some of the many, many families who have found their hopes and dreams crushed by the failure of the government to address the housing crisis in this state.
The fact that Wicklow County Council are unable to draw down the funding required from central government to allow these properties to be repaired and brought up to a standard in a timely and efficient manner means that many families who are in housing distress find themselves walking past these properties on a daily basis.
Thousands are crying out for a home and the approach of this government, and in particular, the Minister for Housing, Darragh O’Brien certainly does not reflect an urgency about this issue.
Last year the Department of housing had an underspend of over half a billion euro, and yet they are unable to provide local authorities, such as Wicklow County Council with the funds that could resource the Housing dept to put 145 houses back into use for families, that could support people presenting as homeless, that could provide assurance for people in housing distress and that would ensure that they are equipped to respond to the vulnerable people who are asking for help on a daily basis.
The days of Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil working with Independents and others on Wicklow County Council to silence the voice of protest and change, to spin the governments failed housing policy as a success, have to change. And now there is an opportunity to do that.”
Denise Cahill said:
“My party colleague John Brady TD has called on the Minister for Housing Darragh O’Brien and his department to engage with Wicklow County Council where we have an identifiable and quantifiable housing stock that can be brought into use for families if the government provides the local authorities with sufficient funding to do so.
Taoiseach Simon Harris needs to act to address the vacant and boarded up properties across the county, and here in Bray, and not allowed to be left in this continual state of disrepair and abandonment when people are literally crying out for homes.
One of the major problems we have in Bray and County Wicklow is that fact that there are coteries of Cllrs. who do not want to fight for ordinary people.
They will not take the fight to the central government as they are unwilling to do anything that draws attention to the abject failure of this government’s housing plan.
In Bray, Fine Gael, the Green Party, Labour and an Independent hold sway, and are not prepared to rock the boat in any way.
Across the County we have a coalition of Fianna Fail and Fine Gael, whose only goal is to preserve their grip on power.
The people of Bray, the people of County Wicklow, and the staff of Wicklow Local Authority need a membership that is prepared to fight for the people, for the County. We need a coherent block of voices on Wicklow County Council that are not afraid to make demands of Simon Harris’s government.
The people of Wicklow need to act to put an end to the cosy cartels and their mutual agreements of self-interest that produced this mess and put in a team that will prioritise the needs of Wicklow local authority and the people of Bray.”