Mayo councillors inundated with calls from tenants facing eviction as vacant town centre units seen as ideal homes
As the housing crisis continues to deepen across County Mayo, councillors say they are being contacted more than ever before by constituents who are struggling to find a place to live.
From March 1, 2026, new rental legislation introducing an array of major reforms for both landlords and tenants, including Tenancies of Minimum Duration, will come into effect.
Councillors across Mayo have reported that the impending changes are already affecting housing availability as landlords have started leaving the rental market.
Figures from the final quarter of 2025 show that 30pc of all house sales in Mayo were linked to landlords leaving the rental sector, a trend that Robert McGreal of REA McGreal Burke said is being driven by a combination of landlords reaching retirement age and growing concern over upcoming regulations.
The impact on renters was highlighted at a recent county council meeting, where Cllr Michael Burke, who works as an auctioneer, said he was dealing with 15 tenants who will lose their homes in the coming weeks as landlords are choosing to exit the market.
Other councillors have shared similar experiences, reporting a sharp rise in the number of constituents contacting them for help after being asked to move out of their rental accommodation.
The growing pressure on housing in the county was highlighted again at the February meeting of the Ballina Municipal District.
Cllr Annie Mae Reape said she has been inundated with calls and messages from constituents asking for her help to secure housing.
Referencing the January Municipal District report, which showed that 19 council tenancies were offered during the month, with 13 accepted and three refused to date, Cllr Reape said she has “never seen anything like the amount of requests for housing.”
While welcoming the number of homes offered in the Ballina district, she questioned why three properties were refused, describing the housing waiting list in Mayo as “endless”.
Noting that refusals can happen for a number of genuine reasons, Cllr Reape said it was “upsetting” to think of someone refusing a house in “today’s climate”.
“The amount of calls we get in relation to housing at the moment is beyond belief,” she said. “Day in, day out, at night, at weekends, all the time.”
In relation to the rising demand for housing and increasingly limited supply, Cllr Marie Thérèse Duffy drew the meeting's attention to the row of colourful buildings along Pearse Street.
She questioned why the units remain out of use while local families struggle to find accommodation, and suggested they could be brought back into use to ease pressure on housing supply.
Cllr Duffy sought an update on when the units would be brought back into use, what stage of dereliction they are currently at, and whether structural safety inspections would need to happen if they were found to be in a severely derelict state.
In response, Head of the Ballina Municipal District, Declan Turnbull, confirmed that the buildings on Pearse Street are part of a larger council-owned site, and said officials are looking into a development plan for the area.
Noting that discussions about the units had previously taken place with councillors, he said these would be revisited in the future.
Addressing the issue of refused tenancies, Mr Turnbull said he did not have the individual cases to hand but explained that refusals can occur for a range of reasons.
These can include location, personal circumstances, the size or layout of a property, or transport difficulties for people without access to a car.
He acknowledged that offering 19 homes in a single month was a positive outcome in the current climate.
This article has been funded by the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme.