The development of a ‘retirement villages’ and a suggestion that the council purchase their own property that can be used when people fall into homelessness were two of the suggestions that cropped up in a wide-ranging discussion on housing at this week’s full meeting of Laois County Council.
Cllr Aisling Moran said that Laois County Council should have their own property that can be used as a hostel for homelessness services, rather that spending money on facilities outside the county.
And speaking after a presentation on the Midlands Region’s Homelessness Action Plan 2025-2029, long-serving Portlaoise councillor Catherine Fitzgerald addressed the issue of retirement villages.
The meeting heard a presentation from Fionnualy Daly, a senior social worker in Laois County Council’s housing section who said that, comparatively, the homeless figures in Laois aren’t as severe as they are in Offaly or Westmeath, in the Midlands Region, though are higher than Longford.
Laois County Council’s spend on emergency accommodation in 2024 was more than €1 million – though 90% of that is recouped from the Department of Housing and Local Government.
In situations where children are involved, the authorities always attempt to keep them in B&B accommodation in Laois to minimise school disruption. Single adults can be housed in hostels in Offaly or Westmeath.
“The causes of homelessness are complex and interconnected, encompassing economic hardship, mental health challenges, addiction, domestic violence and a shortage of affordable housing,” says the draft report.
There was a stated acceptance from councillors who spoke on the issue that rough sleeping thankfully isn’t as big an issue in Laois as it is in other areas.
“There is a spend of €1 million on B&Bs and hostels,” said Cllr Moran. “Could we not purchase our own property?”
“We are very lucky compared to other counties,” said Cllr Caroline Dwane-Stanley. “We don’t have the same level of homelessness … but there is a whole cohort of people on the brink of homelessness.”
Long-serving Portlaoise-based councillor Catherine Fitzgerald spoke on the potential – and challenges – for retirement villages.
Speaking in what was a wide-ranging discussion, Cllr Fitzgerald said Laois County Council are “doing their best to accommodate everyone but it is getting more difficult”.
She said that the council should be facilitating the development of retirement villages but “there is no money in that for builders and developers and that’s why that isn’t happening”.
“But there has to be a social responsibility and I think retirement villages are something we should really focus on in the coming years.”
Michael Rainey, CEO of Laois County Council, said that the housing stock has changed a lot. “Whereas once there was a lot of three and four-bedroom properties, now there is a lot of one and two-bedrooms.”
He referenced the development of the old convent building which “is a really good example of taking a derelict site and transforming it to housing”.
“We are very conscious of promoting one and two-beds in town centre, high quality homes.”
Cllr Caroline Dwane-Stanley spoke of incentivising people to “right size” at a specific time in their lives but also acknowledged that the council’s housing scenarios is “often not straight forward”.
She highlighted instances where relationships break down and one person remains on their own in a three-bed house. “If that situation arises, they should have to right size or down size … often the council ends up having to house two families instead of one in that case.”
Cllr Paddy Buggy added that while “right sizing or down sizing sounds great on paper … people tend to move into areas for many different reasons”.
“We have to be careful. We are dealing with people’s lives here. It’s not like moving houses around on a monopoly board. People have to come first.”
Fionnuala Daly told councillors that there are legal issues with asking people to leave a home and said that many of the points raised were national issues and not specific to Laois.
Laois County Council are considerably ahead of the stated targets in terms of building homes, making them an outlier nationally, though Cllr James Kelly argued that “I’m of the opinion that our targets are too low”.
