New figures published by the Department of Housing show that Monaghan County Council brought 39 vacant social homes back into active use last year while Cavan County Council brought 53.
This latest development comes under the Voids Programme and in the process, Monaghan's local authority recouped €429,000 while Cavan received €583,000 through the initiative, which supports local authorities to prepare vacant homes for re-letting.
Nationally in 2022, 2,307 vacant social homes were brought back into active use last year. Minister O'Brien said that the return of these vacant homes across Cavan and Monaghan brought a positive impact to local communities and avoided vacant homes becoming run down and derelict, or the source of anti-social behaviour.
He added that because the local authorities "seized the opportunity" to bring these homes back into active use last year, a real difference was made to the lives of numerous households. "It's important to note and welcome the fact that nationally the number of vacant social homes requiring pre-letting works was lower in 2022 than in 2021 or 2020.
"This clearly shows that our plan is working. In 2020 and 2021 we spent more than €88m bringing 6,032 vacant social homes back into use, and evidently, we are reducing the number of voids in need of refurbishment works following those two intense years of tackling vacancy.
"We are now progressively shifting to a position of planned maintenance of social housing stock to ensure minimal turnaround and re-let times for social housing stock," said the Minister.
