The government has made 15 million euro in funding available to renovate vacant council houses.
It is aimed at bringing 500 empty local authority units back into use by the end of the year.
Councils have until the 28th of March to submit proposals, and the Housing Minister will then allocate the funding accordingly.
CEO of the housing charity Threshold, Bob Jordan says it's down to local authorities to make the scheme work.
“Well we welcome the fund – at the end of last year there was about 3,500 local authority homes that were vacant for a month or more” he said.
“Today's announcement of a 15 million fund will bring 500 of those properties into use”.
“So we're obviously calling on the local authorities to make sure that they avail of this fund, and obviously we would like to see more funding provided in the future should this not be enough” he added.
