Mayo councillors clash with Department over scale of affordable housing need
Mayo councillors have warned that the county is facing a deepening affordable housing crisis after they heard that the Department of Housing was not fully supportive of the scale of housing delivery proposed by the local authority.
The issue dominated a recent meeting of Mayo County Council’s Housing Strategic Policy Committee (SPC), where members discussed their proposal to set a target of delivering 100 affordable homes per year over the lifetime of the council - a total of 400 units by 2029.
Councillors were advised that the proposal had been met with reluctance at the departmental level, and that there might be a “kickback” on the numbers.
Director of Services for Housing, Tom Gilligan, confirmed that there are currently no Government-set targets for affordable housing in Mayo and that the Department had questioned whether there is a level of need to justify 100 units a year.
“In our consultation with the department, they are not as enthusiastic about the number of affordable housing units proposed, and there will probably be some kickback in relation to that,” Mr Gilligan said.
“They will question, do we have the number of people seeking affordable housing in the county.”
He told the meeting that when the application for the 35 affordable units in Castlebar was submitted, the Department’s “general consensus” was that the number was too high.
But Fine Gael councillor Peter Flynn said the discussion around departmental targets was missing the point entirely.
“Since when did we start determining what we build or don’t build based on department targets?” he asked.
“In the town council days, we built houses based on people’s needs in our county, and there is an absolute need for affordable housing.”
Cllr Flynn pointed to Westport Town Council’s delivery of 54 affordable homes in 2003 as evidence of what can be achieved when local authorities take the lead.
He said Mayo’s high employment rate meant many people fall outside of the social housing threshold, but remain priced out of the private market - he highlighted that an average house in Westport can cost in the region of €500,000.
Since 2012, five affordable units have been delivered in the county. All as part of the Bog Road Demesne development along Golf Course Road in Westport, which opened in September 2025.
The level of demand for affordable housing in Mayo was evident in the response to the scheme, which attracted 55 applications for just five homes.
The homes were valued between €235,000 and €255,000, but Cllr Flynn explained that restrictive income thresholds meant many people were excluded from applying.
“If that threshold had been widened from €40,000 up to €70,000 or €80,000, we would’ve had hundreds of people applying for those houses,
“For the Department or anybody else to suggest that we don’t have the need within our county is absolutely ludicrous - we have a massive need,” he said.
Cllr Flynn stated that the prospect of delivering 35 units in a county the size of Mayo was “not acceptable”, and called for a Department representative to attend the next SPC meeting.
“Right now, we are an echo chamber here. We need to figure out how to get affordable housing to the top of the ladder, and that message needs to go back loud and clear to the department.”
Cllr Flynn later addressed Mr Gilligan directly, saying he held him and the council executive accountable for what he described as a long-standing failure to convey Mayo’s affordable housing needs to the Department properly.
“For so long, you were writing to the Department saying there were no affordability issues within Mayo, even up to three years ago, there were council documents being issued saying there were no affordability problems in Westport,
“How do we change the narrative from what the Department is saying, versus what you’re hearing in this room loud and clear from the elected representatives?” he asked.
Cllr Flynn said it was the role of the council executive to ensure the Department understood that Mayo was “kicking and screaming” for affordable housing, adding that Mr Gilligan was “part of the problem” if that message was not being conveyed.
Mr Gilligan rejected these claims and said the team had been proactive in making the case to the Department, including securing approval to convert the five units in Westport into affordable homes.
“The frustrating thing for the team is that when we did flip five of the houses into affordable, there was no recognition for it at the end of the year in relation to the publication of targets,” he said.
He said the Department’s current focus remains on social housing delivery, with incentives in place for councils that exceed their social housing targets, while affordable housing does not receive the same attention.
Mr Gilligan said the council has submitted a case examining the affordability gap in Ballina and is continuing to progress affordable housing applications across Mayo’s four key towns: Westport, Castlebar, Ballina and Claremorris.
This article has been funded by the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme.