“The Government are wrong if they’re saying somebody on HAP is considered housed” says one Carlow Councillor

“The Government are wrong if they’re saying somebody on HAP is considered housed”.

So one Carlow councillor has hit out.

Brian O’Donoghue’s comments came during a meeting of the Tullow Municipal District last evening in response to a suggestion that it’s national policy that anyone in receipt of the social housing support is ruled out of getting a local authority home.

But Cllr O’Donoghue refuted that telling KCLR “If you’re in a HAP tenancy you are considered for any house that becomes available in your area of preference so the strong message needs to go out that if anyone thinks it’s government policy that if you’re in HAP that you’re not considered for local authority housing, that is not the case, you absolutely will be and there’s no need to worry or to make any changes to your application”.

The meeting was also told that currently, the supply of such housing is greater than the demand for it.

Cllr O’Donoghue says that trend could change, and fast, but he adds that for now there’s lots of space available for development; “The land bank available in Tullow for the last number of years has been there for the local authority so when funding became available to apply for housing schemes we’ve had the available land, it’s the opposite problem that they’ve had in Carlow Town where the available land has started to dry up whereas the land in Tullow either the local authority own land or where there’s been willing landowners to part with or come forward with land and that’s been the key ingredient”.