Vol. 575 No. 4
73 Mr. Costello asked the Minister for the Environment Heritage and Local Government if his Department has received reports as to the number of local authority dwellings that are boarded up awaiting either maintenance or renewal; his estimate of the total number of boarded-up dwellings; his plans to take action on this issue; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [28432/03]
The management and maintenance of their rented dwellings, including the control of vacant dwellings, is the responsibility of the housing authority concerned. The most recent figures available to my Department from local authorities indicate that at the end of December 2002 there were 4,330 local authority dwellings vacant nationwide, of which 2,013 were de-tenanted for planned refurbishment or major regeneration programmes in run-down estates. While my Department does not have details of the particular reasons for the balance of the dwellings being vacant, short-term vacancies do occur on an ongoing basis where dwellings require renovations or improvements to bring them up to an acceptable standard before re-letting. However, I encourage local authorities to ensure that once a dwelling becomes vacant, it is re-let as quickly as possible to a household on the waiting list.
