Mayo county council has launched an initiative through a new national website - www.vacanthomes.ie - designed to gather information on vacant homes throughout the country. 

The initiative compliments Rebuilding Ireland, the government’s action plan on housing and homelessness.

It is recognised that an effective way to meet housing needs is to achieve optimum occupancy of the existing housing stock, whether social or private housing. It is acknowledged that vacant dwellings remain a very significant source of accommodation supply. Census 2016 identified 183,000 vacant homes, not including 62,000 vacant holiday homes, in Ireland.

Mayo County Council, with the assistance of a web design team based in the west of Ireland, and with offices in Dublin and the USA, decided to build and set up a website in order to address the issue of vacant homes and to help significantly reduce the quantity of vacant homes across the country.

Speaking at the launch, Tom Gilligan, director of services with Mayo County Council, said: “the goal is to create new homes from existing vacant housing stock, and www.vacanthomes.ie provides a unique opportunity to achieve this. 

Urging people to use www.vacanthomes.ie, Mr. Gilligan confirmed that the site will generate more opportunities for citizens and their communities to access housing and allow the creation of new homes from existing vacant dwellings in an environmentally sustainable manner.