Louth County Council receive €1m funding cut for acquiring second-hand homes

Louth County Council have seen its budget for acquiring second-hand homes cut by €1 million from the Department of Housing.

The allocation by the Department marks a drop to €11 million from €12 million in 2025.

The local authority spent just €10,860,000 of its budget on acquisitions last year, with a further €935,000 going towards refurbishments. 

It is part of a wider €373 million allocation which Minister for Housing James Browne has pointed out is €80 million more than was spent by local authorities last year. 

“The acquisitions programme is, rightly, targeted at pressing need and largely operates as a last resort for our councils to utilise in order to ensure that households in the most precarious of housing situations can be protected. 

The first response to housing need should always be to build more social housing and, thankfully, we are seeing many of our local authorities begin to gain the much-needed momentum in that regard, but I am driving on with the policies at Government level that means that the path is clearer for that delivery," he said. 

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Louth County Council says it does not engage in "bidding war" with first-time buyers.

Concerns had been raised by Louth councillors that the second-hand acquisition scheme was "exacerbating" the housing crisis. 

However, Louth County Council insisted it does not buy houses when it is aware a first-time buyer is interested.

Ger Murphy, Director of services for Housing and Cultural Delivery, with Louth County Council previously told councillors "where we are alerted to a first-time buyer is interested in one of the houses we’re interested in we divest ourselves from that acquisition.”

Independent councillor for Dundalk/Carlingford Ciarán Fisher said he was glad to hear that from the council. 

"If you’re a first-time buyer you don’t want to get into a bidding war with your Local authority who have deeper pockets and that will have the effect of raising house prices across the board.” 

Funded by the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme.