Marianne Butler of the Green Party
Local councillor Marianne Butler has asked Louth Local Authorities to refuse to repay the loan they took out to buy land for social housing purposes, which has now been left idle.
It emerged earlier this week that the council could be liable to make repayments of €3m per annum for the next 25 years on land that was bought during the boom years.
The land was bought to build social housing units but a government decision means that there will be no new units built anymore, with councils instead using funds to acquire suitable homes that are on the market in their respective localities.
In the absence of no solution to the problem at a national level, the council is looking into whether they can just repay the loan interest only.
However, Green Party representative Cllr Butler feels that the council should refuse to repay the loan as they were only following the Department of the Environment’s recommendations by buying the land in the first place.
She told LMFM: “The Department told Louth Local Authorities to go out and buy land for the purpose of building social housing. This was done in the height of the boom so the guts of €75m was spent between 2005 and 2008.
“The amount on the loans outstanding is €64m and the servicing cost of this would be €3m a year,” she said.
She feels a solution should be found nationally to the problem, which is also affecting other local authorities.
Earlier this week Sinn Féin’s Cllr Tomás Sharkey also blasted the repayments saying: “austerity will last for a whole generation in Louth” as a result of this.
