Sinn Féin to meet Housing Executive over winter crisis response

Social Development Minister Alex Attwood

SINN FÉIN is to meet the North’s Housing Executive CEO on Friday to review the HE’s response to the winter crisis and an estimated repair bill to housing of more than £100million.

Sinn Féin Housing spokesperson Fra McCann MLA has said that figures released yesterday are “staggering” and warrant urgent investigation.

Fra McCann said:
Despite it not featuring very highly in the media, many people right across the North will be more than aware of the current difficulties facing Housing Executive tenants.

Whether homes are still without heating or electricity from before Christmas or awaiting urgent repairs to pipes or ceilings, people need urgent clarity from the Minister for Social Development about what measures are being put in place by the Housing Executive and housing associations to ensure people are being kept up to date and aware of when work will take place.
The questions that apply to other government agencies also apply to the Housing Executive, including:-

• What measures were put in place in advance of the adverse weather to give tenants the relevant information and assistance?
• Why were elected representatives not immediately issued with an emergency contact number?

And what happens now to ensure those tenants, many of them from socio-economically deprived areas, who have had to fork out the bill for insufficient electric blow heaters provided by the Housing Executive?