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THERE are 24 local authority houses currently vacant in the Tralee Municipal District, with one of these taking almost five years to allocate.
Cllr Toireasa Ferris.
The information was supplied at Kerry County Council at the meeting of the Tralee MD on Monday morning, after a motion by Cllr Toireasa Ferris. Councillors again called for a choice-based letting system to be introduced in the wake of this data.
One house has been vacant since January of 2014 and the allocation is being progressed. There were five houses described as ‘Difficult To Let’ and Cllr Toireasa Ferris said she was surprised at this, as she said she knew of about 50 applicants on the housing list who would take one of those properties immediately. These houses are located in Muing, Rahoonane, Rath Oraigh and two in Shanakill.
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She said if the Council was using a choice-based letting system, like in many other local authorities around the country, there would not be properties classified as ‘Difficult To Let’ or any refusals.
Council management said they were open to a choice-based letting system, however the costs of getting the IT equipment to facilitate its introduction were high.
Also, in reply to a motion by Cllr Terry O’Brien requesting the amount of housing offers being refused regularly for the same houses in the same areas of town and would a choice-based letting scheme not work better in this situation, management said in 2018 to date there were 347 housing allocations and 53 refusals.
If an applicant gives two refusals categorised as “unreasonable”, they are not offered another property for 12 months, in line with Kerry County Council’s scheme of allocations.
