Additional 14 housing staff approved for Meath

Meath County Council's housing department is to get an additional 14 staff following an announcement of more than 200 extra posts for local authority housing delivery teams around the country by Housing Minister Darragh O'Brien today.

Meath received the highest allocation in the country and the 14 posts will include nine technical and five administrative roles. A total of 211 posts were approved by Minister O'Brien to assist councils in delivering their social housing targets.

Housing for All, the Government’s new housing Plan, commits to strengthening the capacity of local authorities to initiate, design, plan, develop and manage housing projects. The Plan acknowledges that this requires the resourcing of housing delivery teams and the posts being announced today include a wide range of positions from engineers to quantity surveyors and architects with provision also made for the necessary administrative resources.

Commenting Minister O’Brien said, “In September this year, the Government published our new housing strategy, ‘Housing for All’. It is the most comprehensive housing plan in the history of the State backed by an unprecedented €4bn per year.

“Under ‘Housing for All’, we will deliver nearly 90,000 new build social homes by 2030 and we have put a very clear focus on the delivery of new build projects.

“My Department has been working with the Housing Delivery Coordination Office (HDCO) and the County and City Management Association (CCMA) to identify capacity limitations and additional staffing resources required to deliver our objectives.

“With the approval of these new posts, we are ensuring that all local authorities have the capacity to deliver the scale of social housing delivery required,” he concluded.

Fianna Fáil TD for Cavan-Monaghan & North Meath Niamh Smyth has welcomed the news. She said: “I have no doubt that today’s announcement will be welcome news to all three county councils in my constituency. 28 new posts have been approved in total for the three local authorities – these include six for Cavan, eight in Monaghan and 14 in Meath.

“The roles approved today vary from senior engineer, senior architect to administrative officer role or staff officer roles. Today’s approval will ensure that councils are equipped better to fulfil the housing needs of Cavan, Monaghan and Meath.”

Cllr Noel French also welcomed the new posts to assist councils in delivering their social housing targets but said he remains concerned about housing for people who are trying to get a mortgage and to find affordable housing, something he said he once again raised with Tanaiste Leo Vardakar at a meeting in Trim last week.