Cork City Council currently has 3,135 households on its social housing waiting list with a third of the number made up of non-Irish nationals, figures released by the local authority show.
In terms of demographics, 2,105 of the households are Irish citizens, 454 come from the European Economic Area (EEA), 26 come from the UK and 550 are citizens of non-EEA countries.
The EEA is made up of the 27 member states of the European Union plus the non-EU states of Iceland, Liechtenstein, and Norway.
The figures were released in response to a request by Cllr Albert Deasy, who had asked for the latest available number of households on the city council’s social housing waiting list broken down by the recorded citizenship of the main applicant. The figures exclude transfer applications from other forms of social housing support.
Martina Broderick, Acting Director of Services in the council’s Housing Directorate, said that records by nationality are not available for all households as this was not a mandatory field for completion on the IT system for processing applications until recent years, and it is not required for assessment purposes.
The Independent councillor for the city’s South-West Ward had also requested a breakdown by nationality of the completed lettings of council-owned social housing and approved housing body social housing within Cork City Council’s administrative area for 2023, 2024 and 2025.
Ms Broderick responded that nationality information is not recorded in those instances “as it is not a consideration at the time of allocating a property. All applicants are assessed for social housing support in accordance with the Social Housing Assessment Regulations and related national guidance.”
Speaking at a meeting of the city council this week, Cllr Deasy said: “I suppose for me anyway, citizenship should be the number one eligibility criteria for social housing.”
Funded by the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme.