Athy housing waiting list continues to grows

Over 1,300 people in the Athy Municipal District are currently on the council’s waiting list for a house, but this might still be an underestimate because of how the data is collected.

By far the lion’s share of those waiting are in Athy town with just under 800 on the list, with the next biggest being in Castledermot on 111, then Ballitore on 75, and Nurney on 71.

For comparison, there are a total of 10,680 on the entire housing list for Kildare, according to figures revealed by Deputy Patricia Ryan in August.

This was revealed following a question from cllr Mark Leigh at the recent Municipal District meeting. where he asked for a report on the waiting lists, with a breakdown on each area.

“The I-House system reports on an applicant’s area of choice in this Municipal District area and not where they currently live,” warned the spokesperson from the housing section.

“While it is not possible to choose from the I-House system in the Municipal District area as all the individual townlands in this area would need to be included, for the purpose of this report the larger towns and townland in this Municipal District area are listed,” she said (see below).

“It’s 1,332 now,” said Cllr Leigh. “And that’s up from 1,251 on the list when I last asked three years ago”.

“This is way too high, and we were told last year that the numbers on the waiting list were coming down, and it does not look like it.”

“Look, there’s planning permission for nearly 1,100 private homes granted in the town, and a percentage of these have to be for social housing, but we need to start building social housing again.”

“Also, there’s loads of vacant housing around the town, and maybe 50 in south Kildare at the moment.”

“I grew up in a social house, and my parents still live there, people shouldn’t be looking down their noses at anybody.”

Waiting List By Area

Athy - 797; Ballitore - 75; Ballyroe - 22; Calverstown - 35; Castledermot - 111; Castlemitchell/Castlerheban/Churchtown - 32; Castleroe/Levistown/Maganey - 17; Kilberry - 48; Kilkea - 28; Kilmead - 27; Moone/Timolin - 42; Narraghmore - 27 and Nurney - 71