Twenty Mayo pyrite redress applications deemed ineligible

TWENTY applications from Mayo home owners under the defective concrete blocks redress scheme have been deemed ineligible.

That amounts to a fifth of all applications received by Mayo County Council, who are administering the scheme.

Members of the council's housing strategic housing policy committee (SPC), in an update on the scheme, were told that 99 applications have been received to date.

Seventy-four have received stage 1 approval and of those nine have stage 2 approval. Twenty were not eligible for the scheme, and five applications are outstanding where further information is being sought.

The crisis in the rental market of properties not being available was again highlighted at the meeting, with Councillor Michael Kilcoyne saying these people have no where to live rebuilding their homes.

He could not understand why this matter has not ended up in the courts.

Director of services Tom Gilligan said the scale of the situation was that it affected 345 properties and 17 social housing unit were also identified, but he believed the real figure will be multiples of that.

The defective blocks scheme is for private home owners. The council has done a pilot on one of its properties in north Mayo, which is being kept under review and appears to have worked.