Council continues to face ‘huge’ costs in tackling unfinished housing estates

Roscommon County Council continues to face “huge” costs in tackling unfinished housing estates in the county, with one development alone expected to cost in the region of €250,000 to take in charge, councillors were informed at their May plenary meeting.

Chief Executive Shane Tiernan told the meeting that the scale and complexity of the issue meant progress would be slow, while also backing calls from councillors to seek additional government support.

“It’s a huge cost. The low hanging fruit is gone,” he said. “The reality is that some of these estates are in abeyance as regards ownership. It’s very complex – we can’t give permission to connect to something that we don’t own or have clarified who owns it,” he explained.

Mr Tiernan pointed out at the meeting that one estate alone in a village was going to cost in the order of a €250,0000 to take in charge. “This gives you an idea of what we are going to have to programme in over the coming years to take estates in charge. It’s going to be a slow path because we just can’t do it overnight. I do agree that we have to make representations to central government to get support on this.” Mr Tiernan outlined how some estates, particularly those built during the boom, present significant infrastructural challenges.

Referring to some of these estates, he said that “the statute on all of this” was that in the first instance, Uisce Éireann had to agree to take the infrastructure in charge before the council could move in to address roads and lighting.

“In some instances, these estates are a huge problem for the residents because the estates that I am talking about – the infrastructure went in 20 years ago, it’s becoming end of life and they are too far away from a mains sewage connection. It can be up two kilometres away,” he said.

He pointed out that the government had previously introduced special schemes for these types of estates. However, he said all applications regarding Roscommon in recent years had not been accepted for funding, with the local authority told there was greater priority elsewhere in the country.

He warned that residents were often left with significant bills. “This could be bills for anything between €10,000 to €20,000 per household for smaller estates.

“These people are upset and I completely understand why they are upset but unfortunately it is a perfect example of buyer beware because we can’t step in in these situations. We’re not getting funding for them and meanwhile the infrastructure is deteriorating continuously,” he said.

Director of Finance Sean Mullarkey outlined the financial constraints facing the local authority. “One thing I’d say is that we would love if we had them all wrapped up,” he said, noting that the planning department had identified around 50 outstanding estates requiring attention, most of them in the Boyle Municipal District.

“They are unfinished estates but they are not ghost estates. We have to take them in charge - there are people living in all of these estates. We put in €150,000 every year plus we have put in another €250,000 now to top it up. We are working our way down steadily through the list but there will be three or four estates when we get there that will be very difficult and we won’t be able to fund those.”

Mr Mullarkey added that current spending was largely focused on maintenance. “Some of them require maintenance, the bigger issues like sewerage have not been addressed, so it’s essentially supporting a maintenance project,” he said.

At the outset of the discussion, Fianna Fáil councillor Paschal Fitzmaurice called for government intervention when it came to the cost of the council taking these estates in charge.

“Can any of this money be recouped from central government? One time there were grants there for local authorities for unfinished estates. I propose that we write to the Minister for Local Government seeking to recoup that money because it’s unfair on local authorities to come in when an estate wasn’t finished properly through no fault of the local authority.”

Fianna Fáil councillor John Keogh also proposed that a letter go to the housing minister specifically in relation to waste treatment systems reaching their end of life, to see if a scheme or grant could be introduced to support upgrades until these estates could be connected to the main sewerage system.

Mr Tiernan suggested that any correspondence to the department should also reference previous schemes for unfinished estates and call for increased funding, with Roscommon to be given priority.

Fianna Fáil councillor Sean Moylan said everyone needed to lobby government and ministers for funding to address these estates. He also queried whether borrowing could help speed up progress.

Independent councillor Laurence Fallon said it was “not the fault of the council these estates were unfinished, they were victims of the Celtic Tiger. The banks were bailed out, businesses were bailed out and it is my opinion there should be a duty on the government to bail out what has happened because we have done a hell of a lot of work with the ones that we could do and only for that, we would have a lot worse than that.

“I certainly support writing to the minister pointing out this is an issue that we can’t do on our own and it needs to be looked after,” he said.

Independent councillor Micheál Frain noted that many of the issues were in the Boyle Municipal District, particularly in Ballaghaderreen.

“I have to compliment the council for what it has done in some of these estates, estates that people are living in. Unfortunately, for one reason or another they have gone into disrepair, and I don’t agree with it but the council has to pick up the pieces and has done so. It’s hard to stomach but there is nobody else to do it.

“The transformation that has taken place in a number of those estates in our town has been phenomenal. I do also agree with Cllr Fitzmaurice’s proposal to look for funding from central government,” said Cllr Frain.

Independent councillor Tom Crosby said that in many cases developers or the companies involved had collapsed and bonds were insufficient and suggested a return to a small council fund that had been there previously.

In the past, he said this fund provided some support to cover basic maintenance items such as replacing light bulbs or unblocking sewers.