October 26 1974
The British Government is to be asked to split up the Northern Ireland Housing Executive’s functions to help solve the crisis facing the building and home improvements industries.
The fact – included in a confidential Housing Executive report – that a fifth of the north’s 455,000 homes are statutorily unfit, comes as no surprise to public representatives who have been waging a campaign for improvements.
The report was “leaked” by a Dublin newspaper yesterday, but some of the findings were forecast last August by assemblymen who made no secret of their concern about the situation.
The report, to be published next month, will show that 19.6 per cent of all homes are statutorily unfit, compared with 7.3 per cent in England and Wales. Ninety-one per cent of the unfit homes lack at least four of the five basic standard amenities – a fixed bath, a washbasin, an internal lavatory, a kitchen sink and hot and cold water at three points.
Forty-two per cent of Fermanagh’s homes are unfit and other areas with high unfitness proportions include Newry and Mourne (27.2 p.c.), Omagh (33.6 p.c.) and Ballymoney (27.3 p.c.).
The aim of the report was to provide a detailed picture of housing conditions and to help in the task of working out the best policies for the future.
SDLP Assemblyman, Hugh Logue, sees the splitting up of the Housing Executive’s functions as one line of action. The Executive, he says, should have responsibility only for its own housing stock and he advocates the setting up of a new agency to deal with house improvements.
At present, the Housing Executive decides whether to pay grants for house improvements, but understaffing in the grants department is causing major delays. Mr Logue also points out that the Executive is more rigid than were the old councils in its interpretation of the Housing Act.
“More and more people want to take advantage of the Act but they find the whole process very difficult”, he said. “It’s taking up to nine or 12 months to get grants through and costs are going up all the time”.
This red tape stranglehold on home improvements is worsened by the staff shortage. There are no more than three assessment inspectors in the Derry, Strabane and Limavady areas.
