Big changes ahead at volunteer-run private Laois housing development

There is a big change ahead at the community built Wolfe Tone Court, a volunteer-run private housing development in Mountmellick. Laois County Council is taking over the decision of choosing tenants, in 75% of cases.

At the moment, five of the 24 houses are vacant and the council will be filling four of them. It followed findings of “irregularities” in the Mountmellick’s scheme administration. John Moloney chair of the committee explained it to the Leinster Express / Laois Live.

“Heretofore our committee allocated the houses. People applied to us by word of mouth, or by the parish newsletter. Now a new situation has developed in the Government because of irregularities in a number of voluntary housing bodies. Bear in mind there’s over 840 of them. Some of the biggest names are now being found wanting under financial, management, and other issues.

“So a year ago the regulatory authority picked at random ten schemes, we were one of them. They brought us to Dublin, the first email I got was quite terrifying. The heading was ‘irregularities in Mountmellick Voluntary Housing Scheme. It shook me to my knees.

“There were eight different headings we weren’t compliant with. Of the eight we are now down to the last. We’re satisfied to say that this month we will be deemed fully compliant. There was nothing really wrong."

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“One was we had no risk management policy, but we had no risks here. Another was we had no conflict of interest policy, but we never had an issue. If we were allocating a house to a relative of the committee, they excused themselves. Another was we were supposed to have a 12 month projection of our expenses. All of these are now in place," explained John Moloney. 

“Now we have gone from 100% of our ability to nominate tenants, we now have to take 75% of referrals from the county council. That is creating a lot of tension within our committee. Because it goes against our mission statement of providing safe secure homes for Mountmellick and the adjoining parish.

“We have referrals now from people that have no connection with Mountmellick. At the same time Mountmellick people are saying to me ‘how come we can’t get in there?’.

“I have to recognise we have the grant from the county council and they are in their rights, there is a housing crisis. The trouble for me and the committee is it goes against everything we stand for.  For every five houses we have vacant, we can choose only one."

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“I’m meeting the council this week and trying to get them to understand that this was our reason to exist. The council has to take into consideration every applicant they have and decide who are the people most deserving. We as a committee have to work out how to handle it going forward. On one hand I’m very disappointed that what we set out to do is being unravelled. But I understand the pressures that the local authority is under," Mr Moloney added.

“The way to resolve it is for the council to trust us, show us their waiting list, and we show them ours, and we work together,” he said.

John Moloney believes their scheme could work in every town and village. “This has worked well,” he said.