Fears of ‘catch you’ approach as Tipperary council housing inspections spark concern
Concerns have been raised in Tipperary about issues that were brought up by engineers during inspections of the council’s housing stock.
At the March monthly meeting of the Carrick-on-Suir Municipal District, Sinn Féin councillor David Dunne said that some constituents had been left shocked by the issues that were raised by engineers inspecting their homes.
"We were inspecting council houses as part of the planned maintenance plan, which I think is a great idea that we get ahead of the curve, instead of waiting until someone passes away, or surrenders the house, and then going in and having to do a full retrofit or whatever it may be on the house.
"But unfortunately, I had some constituents that were very upset with the way it was approached,” Cllr Dunne said.
The council’s planned maintenance programme for local authority homes aims to keep track of the condition of social homes, and deal with issues as they arise, rather than when the house becomes vacant. The aim is to keep houses in a better condition so that when it does become vacant, it can be brought back into use quicker as the amount of work it will need will be less.
According to Cllr Dunne, engineers from the council’s housing sections were pointing out “silly” things about the houses.
"The engineer came in and was pointing out, what I thought were silly things, like ‘where’s your fire extinguisher, where’s your fire blanket, you changed this out in the garden and you have made this change, and you didn’t tell the council about this,’ now I didn’t think that this is what the purpose of this was,” the Sinn Féin councillor said.
"I didn’t think we were going out trying to catch people, and I wouldn’t like to see it, so maybe the housing section can clarify that it’s not a ‘catch you’ thing, because if it is, people won’t let council engineers in.
"Word went around like wildfire, and they only did four houses in the estate, but everybody in the estate was ringing asking ‘why are the council carrying out inspections after 25 years?’.” Cllr Dunne said.
Calling on the inspections to be done properly, Cllr Dunne said that whether councillors and the council itself like it or not, people who live in council homes are going to make changes to the house.
"Whether we like it or not, some people in council houses have great pride in their house and they put a lot of their own money into doing things.
"Some of it, we all know, are not strictly within the rules of what they were meant to do, but I wouldn’t like to see them being dragged over hot coals and having to take out the likes of stoves that they didn’t get permission for, or even if someone adapted an attic for storage.
"I just think we’d want to be very, very careful. It’s a great idea, but we need to be careful how we approach it,” Cllr Dunne added.
In response, a representative from the council’s housing section said that the inspections are solely meant to assess the condition of the property, not to catch anyone out.