Cllr Tomás Sharkey
Sinn Féin councillor Tomás Sharkey has called for sweeping changes to be made in Louth County Council’s housing section after receiving a report into an audit of house purchases by the local authority in 2010.
The report was called for late last year after it emerged that a senior executive engineer and a senior executive officer in the housing section sold houses which they owned to the council.
Both staff members have been on suspension since October while an investigation was ongoing.
Cllr Sharkey said in a statement that he believes that the 2007 Code of Conduct for Employees had been breached and painted an “ugly picture” of things at the local authority.
“Both houses in question are in my electoral areas of Blackrock and Knockbridge,” said Sharkey.
“This report gives us an ugly picture of Louth’s housing section. The County Manager has written the report because of calls by me to have the purchase of houses audited and investigated and this proves that my pursuit of the issue of senior housing staff being involved in selling their own houses to the council was correct.
“The audit by Deloitte raised the issues of employees negotiating on their own behalf with persons with whom they worked on a day-to-day basis and attending meetings at which their properties were being discussed. This is in breach of the 2007 Code of Conduct for Employees of local authorities. I have been raising my concerns about this type of practice for some time now.
“The report has been carefully worded to give a stinging criticism of how the housing section has been managed over the years. I want to thank the brave and careful work of ordinary staff who assisted the audit and subsequent inquiry.
“It is incredible to read that the results of house inspections undertaken by the Senior Executive Engineer were not documented in a formal report. That Senior Executive Engineer sold his own house in Tullagee, Knockbridge to the Council at a cost to the taxpayer of €142,562.50 and with an additional refurbishment cost of €62,662.03.
“Louth County Council’s solicitor wrote many times advising that structural surveys of purchased houses be carried out but they did not happen. Inspections by the Senior Executive Engineer were not formally documented. There was no record that the houses being bought satisfied a demand from our housing waiting list. In one instance the council’s solicitor was instructed to proceed with the purchase of a house before the Director’s Order was signed to buy it. There is no record as to how the council became aware of houses being available for purchase. Policies and procedures did not exist.
“The report from the Louth County Manager confirms the grave mistrust that the public holds of our housing section. I welcome the fact that there will now be a review of procedures into house allocations, maintenance requests, purchase of units, Rental Accomodation Scheme, Long Term Leasing and Housing Assistance Payments. There now needs to be a sweeping change in our council. Policies and procedures must be made and followed.
“This document was prepared by Ms Philomena Poole who will leave her post as County Manager after only 8 months. I want to thank her for helping prepare the ground for reform in Louth.”
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Talk of the Town 