By Chris Ashmore
A LOCAL councillor has called for safety checks to be carried out on social homes in the Letterkenny-Milford Municipal District Council Area – with a particular emphasis on smoke alarms.
Cllr Gerry McMonagle believes that many smoke alarms are out of warranty and need replacing, but he is not happy with the current situation where people have not been getting maintenance checks.
Claiming that “nothing was done” in relation to a previous motion on the subject, he told the March meeting of Letterkenny-Milford Municipal District Council that he had been in his council house for over 20 years and he had yet to see council staff coming round to do a maintenance check.
He added that when he had reported maintenance issues, it had taken “an exceptionally long time to address them” but he did acknowledge that the Council’s housing department is under extreme pressure.
Stating that the finance is not there, he added: “This is a very important and serious issue.”
He maintained that in his estate the smoke alarms are out of warranty and more money is needed for maintenance, and staff.
In his response, Seamus Canning, Area Manager, said that the maintenance team had been out in recent days and has changed some alarms.
He encouraged tenants to contact the Council if there is an issue.
A call for a workshop with the relevant staff was made from Cllr McMonagle with the Mayor, Cllr Ciaran Brogan of the opinion that this could be arranged.
Meanwhile, Eamonn Brown, Acting Director of Service, spoke of a pilot programme that is seeing the Council moving away from response maintenance to planned maintenance.
During the debate, a number of jibes were made regarding the fact that the maintenance budget had been cut in the Council’s budget after councillors had differed on commercial rates, which eventually were kept at unchanged levels, leading to a less income for the Council and consequently a lower maintenance budget.