Cork County Council turned down offers from Nama to purchase 106 houses because they were located in areas where there was no demand, writes Sean O’Riordan.

Council chief executive Tim Lucey made the disclosure yesterday after concern was raised by some councillors that in the midst of the housing crisis, the local authority had not taken up all the offers that it could have.

Mr Lucey said the council knew from experience there were areas in the county where social housing applicants would not relocate to for one reason or another.

The Irish Examiner understands they are primarily in remote rural areas with little or no services.

Mr Lucey was responding to questions from Cllr Des O’Grady who wanted to know why the county council had not taken up all the offers of 709 houses made by Nama since 2012.

Mr O’Grady said if this figure was accurate it was extremely worrying when there were more than 7,000 people on the council’s approved waiting list and there were so many homeless people sleeping rough.

Other councillors echoed his words, with Cllr Melissa Mullane in particular saying she was very concerned about the issue.

“There were over 5,000 families homeless this Christmas and more than 2,000 children sleeping in hotels and B&Bs [nationally]. Every single house acquired by the council makes a difference,” Mr O’Grady said as standing orders were suspended to debate the issue.

Mr Lucey said that in fact, during that time frame, Nama had identified 806 houses which might be of use to the local authority.

Nama, he said, subsequently withdrew the offer on 371, probably because in the interim it had sold them off to the private sector.

“It is futile to take houses where there is no demand,” Mr Lucey said adding that the council refused a further seven homes as they were deemed not suitable for social housing.

He said, to date, 322 Nama properties were being taken over by the county council. So far the council has completed or is about to complete contracts for the transfer of the houses.

The chief executive said that some were being held up because they would require significant refurbishment in order to bring them up to the standard required to rent them out to social housing tenants.

Mr O’Grady thanked him for the figures, but wanted to know why the council refused to take up the offer of 106 homes.

Cllr Paul Hayes said councillors were very frustrated about the length of time it was taking to get tenants into previously owned Nama properties.

He too asked for further information about why the council refused offers of so many homes from Nama.

Mr Lucey reiterated that they were in areas of no demand. He said he would get the council’s director of housing to go into more detail about that a forthcoming meeting of the council’s special purposes committee on housing.

This story first appeared in the Irish Examiner.