Dedicated unit needed for council house repairs in Mayo

REPAIRS and maintenance of Mayo County Council's housing stock has been raised with local authority management.

With struggles to get contractors, the council needs to employ its own people to carry out works, a Claremorris-Swinford Municipal District meeting was told.

Councillor Patsy O'Brien described having 'huge problems' with the maintenance programme, with people left waiting months to have important jobs done.

He cited a case where water is coming down through a ceiling, in another water it running out onto a footpath, and nothing done about it. A commitment was given to another tenant to put in a back boiler, and they were offered a 35-year-old range taken out of another place.

There has to be flexibility around contractors and the tendering process, he stated, saying the system has to change, with the council employing people to do the work directly themselves. He understood that contactors aren't going in for smaller jobs if there's bigger jobs.

There's also double standards, commented Councillor O'Brien, with the council itself inspecting private rented homes and issuing lists of what's wrong.

The inability to get contractors is a sign of the times, said Councillor Damien Ryan. And he asked if they should be looking at having a self-contained unit in the municipal district.

Councillor Gerry Murray said Dublin City Council spends all of its rental revenue on repairing homes, and it was in the elected representatives' gift to adopt a similar scheme in Mayo.

Municipal district head Padraig Flanagan said there should be a substantial increase in revenue following a rent review a number of months ago, so there should be an opportunity in the budget to increase the funding for repairs.

The point was made by director of services Tom Gilligan that rent is paid under a differential scheme - ability to pay as opposed to full cost.

Rental income supplements other parts of the council's activities and ring-fencing it for maintenance could have unintended impacts on other services.

Mr. Flanagan said contractors do a good job but there is so much work out there for them that it is difficult to get them. The e-tenders process is also cumbersome.

There is a team of three men in the municipal district, he added, who do direct work, but even if they had 20 people they would be fully occupied.

The private sector has kept it going for decades, balanced with their own staff.

They are continuously lobbying for extra funding, he said.

* Funded under the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme