Almost 200 Vacant Social Homes in Wexford Brought Back into Use in Last Three Years

The Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, James Browne TD, today published new figures showing that nationally 2,188 vacant social homes were brought back into active use in 2025 under the Voids Programme.

The Voids Programme supports local authorities in preparing vacant homes for re-letting and builds on the ongoing work to tackle vacancy and dereliction to ensure vacant properties are re-used for housing.

The national trend of the overall voids figure declining continued for a third consecutive year in 2025, indicating the sustained progress in a local authority shift towards a planned maintenance model. This approach enables quicker repairs, reduces downtime and supports faster reletting of social homes. As a result, properties remain in continuous use and occupancy levels are more stable and consistent.

Over the last three years in Wexford, 188 vacant social homes have been renovated and brought back into use thanks to a €2.27m investment. 

Commenting on the figures for Wexford today, Minister Browne said:

“Whether housing is publicly owned or privately owned in Wexford, leaving homes vacant is simply not acceptable, so I welcome these figures. Even though we are delivering more social homes than at any point in a generation, people need more homes built as well as made available. We can’t be letting properties sit unoccupied.

“It is positive to see the continued progress of actively shifting to a planned maintenance approach for our social housing stock as we can see from the lower numbers again this year.

“Minimising the time it takes to re-let properties leading to more consistent occupancy and shorter turnaround time is an essential element in addressing the demand for social housing. Local authorities are clearly making strong progress in this area and I expect this to continue in 2026.

“Beyond expanding social housing, quick refurbishment of vacant properties is also critical to regeneration and improving the vibrancy of communities in towns and cities across the country.”

Over a five-year period (2020-2025), 15,365 homes have been returned to active use, funded by over €213 million, under the voids programme. Since its commencement in 2014, €385 million has been spent to return a total of 27,860 homes back into active use.

In addition to over €24 million provided to local authorities in 2025 for voids, the programme also provided funding of €6.88 million to support the continuation of payments towards planned maintenance and included funding towards stock condition surveys which help to ensure quicker turnarounds for putting existing stock back into use.