THE MAYOR OF South Dublin has said that six homes lying idle in Clondalkin is “scandalous”.

Station Grove in the town is a small private development that was built in 2006 number of years ago and has since remained vacant.

Sinn Féin councillor and mayor of the county Mark Ward says that having six built homes empty at a time when 8,000 people are on South Dublin’s housing list is not good enough.

“I get calls every week from desperate families about houses that are vacant and boarded up. Some of these have valid reasons but a lot of them do not”

“There are six houses vacant on Station Grove in Clondalkin since they were built in 2006. That is 12 years plus without any families occupying them. This is scandalous in the current climate. I have reports that an approved housing body were pursuing to purchase these houses but the developer did not progress.”

That was confirmed by South Dublin County Council in a response to Ward. The council said that the sale of the homes did not go through.

Ward says the homes were being investigated under the Vacant Homes Strategy, but says the outcome of that investigation is unknown. He added legislation is needed.

“The governments need to bring in legislation that will prohibit property developers to idly sit on properties like these.”

Census 2016 identified 80,000 vacant homes across the country, however, Housing Minister Eoghan Murphy said many of these may have been empty due to a house being in the process of being sold or let, adding the figure could be closer to 25,000. CSO figures this year put that closer to 1,000.