Laois CEO rejects councillor's claim of €24m housing 'underspend'

A claim that Laois County Council underspent its Government housing budget by €24 million, has been roundly rejected by the CEO.

CEO John Mulholland has stated that "we are not in a position where any balance was given back".

Following a query made by Cllr Aisling Moran during the November council meeting, he said that the council had actually exceeded the housing target set for Laois by Government.

"We were given an allocation to build 200 houses. We went back to the Department and said that over the lifetime of this program, we can do over 900 homes.

"It is important to know that under the Housing for All allocation, 200 houses were to be built in 2022. We will achieve over 200. We will not be in a position where any balance is given back. We have far exceeded what we set out to do, we have nearly doubled it, we are on the road to that," Mr Mulholland stated.

He explained that some of the money his council has spent in building houses will be claimed back in January from the state coffers, called recoupment.

"We will have about 17 houses for recoupment in January. Part of that is delays in water and ESB connections. In three weeks the contractor is off the site, the work is done, in other words we will have delivered what we set out to do. 

"The question of funding makes no difference, we are delivering the homes. There is no question of money not being spent. If you want to look at recoupments, that's a different picture," the CEO said.

A local councillor said at the November council meeting that "it looks like there was an underspend of €24 million".

Cllr Aisling Moran claimed that Laois was "allocated" €69.5million to build houses, but "only spent €48 million".

"So next year we are only going to get €45 million. Can that underspend be used on young people buying houses or doing them up," she had suggested.

Cllr Caroline Dwane Stanley had supported her somewhat.

"I have no doubt we have a good housing programme of delivery over four years. Cllr Moran is not completely wrong. This came out recently in the Dáil. There was €1 billion of underspend nationally, and an 11,000 increase in homelessness. The Minister has said he'd pay county councils to build social housing," she claimed.

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Speaking in the Dáil in November, the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform Michael McGrath had refuted claims made by Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald of a housing underspend.

He said there was no €2bn of capital underspend in housing, and that it was “always the case” that the final quarter of the year was always when there was the largest delivery as schemes get closed out. He said that over 26,000 social houses will be built nationally by the end of 2022 in the Housing for All program, up by nearly 6,000 homes from 2021.