Mayo Councillors claim council not carrying out essential repairs for tenants

Councillors from the Claremorris/Swinford Municipal District have claimed that Mayo County Council is not making money available for essential repairs to its housing stock.

Fine Gael Cllr Patsy O’Brien raised the issue at the April meeting of the MD and claimed there was huge problems for tenants who are not getting these essential repairs.

“The council will only carry out emergency repairs. There might be a subtle difference between the two for the council, but there is very little difference to the individual tenant. The budget is inadequate,” he said.

“This is leaving, in some cases, elderly, people with broken or missing window latches, and dampness and mould in their homes. The council is holding back a small bit of money for emergency repairs and in many cases are trying to blame the occupants for other items, which are part of normal wear and tear, rather than repair them. Any property owner will tell you that, over time, different items in houses will need to be repaired or replaced – it’s part of the normal life cycle of a property. The council are the owners of a lot of houses in this, and other areas, and they have a responsibility to properly maintain them, and they are not doing so.”

Cllr O’Brien added that the budget for this essential work was inadequate and that it was negatively impacting the quality of life for many of their tenants. He was meeting complaints regularly on the doorstep, as he canvassed, he said.

Another Fine Gael councillor, Michael Burke, said that the council adopted a totally different approach when dealing with private landlords, when the council rented property from them.

“The council do rigorous inspections of these properties,” he said, “and are very strict on these private landlords. They are probably going on Department guidelines, but in some cases it is very unfair. I know of a small number of landlords in my own area, that as soon as their property becomes vacant, will exit the property rental business. These are good landlords, they are not cowboys,” he said. “They are very genuine people, who maybe have a single house rented, or a couple of houses, but they feel that the regulations imposed on them, and the implementation of these regulations, is too severe and they can’t wait to get out of the business.”

Cllr Burke said the County Council is the biggest landlord in the county and it is unfair that the criteria for a council tenant is different, or seems to be different, to that of a tenant with a private landlord.

“The Council has many long term tenants who are excellent,” Cllr Burke said, “and many of these tenants rarely ask for maintenance – they do it themselves. There should be some sort of reward for them if they buy a toilet seat or whatever, that if they produce a receipt, they should be able to claim the money back.”

Cllr Gerry Murray (Sinn Féin) said that he concurred with the sentiments expressed by the other councillors and was concerned that the lack of council staff at weekends was causing problems, too.

“If a council tenant has a boiler breakdown at the weekend,” he said, “there’s nobody to repair it until Monday. It’s worse on a bank holiday weekend, leaving vulnerable people without heat for long periods.”