Tipperary County Council has been allocated €1.4 million under the latest round of the Government’s Voids Programme, in a move expected to help bring more vacant local authority homes back into use across the county.
The funding forms part of a wider €40 million national investment announced by Housing Minister Mr James Browne, which will support the refurbishment and re-letting of around 2,200 local authority homes across the country in 2026.
The latest allocation is expected to provide a significant boost for Tipperary as demand for housing remains strong and pressure continues on local authority stock. The funding will be used to prepare vacant council-owned properties for new tenants, helping to increase housing supply through the reuse of existing homes.
The announcement also signals a major policy shift in how future funding under the Voids Programme will be distributed.
Under a revised performance-based model introduced by the Minister, future allocations will be linked to how effectively local authorities reduce vacancy levels and improve turnaround times for re-letting homes.
From 2027, local authorities, including Tipperary County Council, will be expected to maintain a vacancy rate of no more than 2% and achieve a maximum average turnaround time of 18 weeks for vacant properties. The turnaround target will tighten further to 15 weeks in 2028 and 12 weeks in 2029.
Councils that meet those targets will qualify for full funding under the revised model, placing a stronger emphasis on delivery, efficiency and the rapid reuse of existing housing stock.
The funding will be seen as a positive development for Tipperary, particularly given the ongoing need to maximise available housing and reduce the time homes remain vacant between lettings.
Nationally, the Government says the Voids Programme has played a significant role in bringing empty social homes back into use over the past decade. Since the scheme began in 2014, a total of €385 million has been invested, supporting the return of 27,860 homes to active use.
The 2026 allocation is also a 29% increase on the previous year’s funding, reflecting what the Department says is a continued focus on tackling vacancy and increasing housing availability through refurbishment.
For Tipperary, the €1.4 million allocation is expected to support further progress in returning vacant homes to use, while positioning the local authority to meet the tougher targets that will shape future funding in the years ahead.
Mr Gerard O’Brien, the former Circuit Court judge, convicted of attempted rape and sexual abuse involving six young men, has appealed his conviction before the Court of Appeal, with his legal team alleging that the trial judge’s directions to the jury were confusing, unbalanced and unfair to the defence.
Mr O’Brien, aged 61 years, of Old School House, Slievenamon Road, Thurles, Co Tipperary, was convicted in December 2023 at the Central Criminal Court of one count of attempted anal rape and eight counts of sexual assault. The offences related to six complainants and occurred between March 1991 and November 1997, when O’Brien was working as a secondary school teacher at CBC Monkstown in Dublin. Four of the complainants were students or former students of Mr O’Brien at that time. They were aged between 17 years and 24 years old. The complainants have previously indicated that they wished for Mr O’Brien to be named while maintaining their own anonymity.
Mr O’Brien had pleaded not guilty to all charges. He later resigned from the Circuit Court, having been appointed to the bench back in 2015, and had been on leave since the allegations emerged. In June 2024, he was sentenced to four years’ imprisonment by Mr Justice Alexander Owens, who said Mr O’Brien was “unsuitable to hold office”.
Opening the appeal today, senior counsel for Mr O’Brien, Mr Hugh Hartnett, said there were a number of significant issues with the trial judge’s charge to the jury. He said the overall complaint was that the directions were confusing and weighted against the defence, and that the alleged errors were sufficient, individually and cumulatively, to render the trial unfair.
Counsel submitted that the charge was unbalanced and, at times, had the effect of diminishing matters relied upon by the defence. He referred to comments made by the trial judge warning jurors not to enter a “parallel universe of make-belief” and to observations that jurors were not obliged to accept evidence they considered “incredible” or “outlandish”. Mr Hartnett argued that, although not directed exclusively at Mr O’Brien, the emphasis of those remarks bore particularly on the appellant’s evidence.
The defence also challenged the judge’s direction on lies told by an accused, arguing that the warning given to the jury was confusing. It was further submitted that jurors may have felt pressure to reach a verdict after being told they could deliberate on Christmas Eve if necessary. Additional grounds included the refusal of an application for separate trials and the judge’s direction that jurors could take account of Mr O’Brien’s legal knowledge, when assessing statements and interviews with gardaí.
For the State, Ms Anne-Marie Lawlor said the suggestion that the trial judge had conveyed personal views on guilt or innocence was “misconceived”. She submitted that the jury had been properly instructed and that there was no merit in the claim that Mr O’Brien’s evidence had been unfairly discredited. She also rejected the criticism of the warning on lies, saying there was no requirement for any set formula of words.
Ms Lawlor said the trial judge had properly addressed the challenges arising from historic allegations and had correctly dealt with the application for separate trials. She urged the Court of Appeal to uphold the conviction.
Mr Justice John Edwards said the three-judge court would reserve judgment.
Pre-deceased by his parents George and Ellen, and his brothers and sisters; Fr. Bernard passed away peacefully, while in the care of staff at Sacred Heart Nursing Home, Crosspatrick, Co. Kilkenny,
His passing is most deeply regretted, sadly missed and lovingly remembered by his sorrowing family;loving sister Rita, brother-in-law Barry, nieces and nephews, grandnieces and grandnephews, great grandnieces, great- grandnephews, all members of L’Arche Community Kilkenny, extended relatives, neighbours and many friends in Ireland and abroad.
Requiem Mass for Fr. Bernard will be offered on Friday morning, March 13th at 11:00am, followed by interment, immediately afterwards, in Kilbride Cemetery, Callan, Co. Tipperary.
For those persons who would wish to attend Requiem Mass for Fr. Bernard, but for reasons cannot, same can be viewed streamed live online, HERE.
The extended Allon family wish to express their appreciation for your understanding at this difficult time, and have made arrangements for those persons wishing to send messages of condolence, to use the link shown HERE.
ESB Networks Under Pressure to Explain Smart Meter Failure and Full Extent of Data Error.
ESB Networks is facing mounting pressure to provide a full and transparent account of how an internal software failure was allowed to generate grossly inaccurate smart meter readings for customers across Ireland, triggering alarm, confusion and serious questions about oversight, safeguards and accountability. The company has confirmed that a planned software upgrade carried out last Friday led to some electricity usage data being processed incorrectly, resulting in highly inflated figures appearing on customer accounts and supplier platforms.
You may check your ‘not so smart’ reading HERE, if you can trust the system.
Emotionally overwhelmed eletric wiring on display located at Ikerrin Road Thurles, Co. Tipperary. “Behold sky spaghetti”. Somewhere inside that knot is one cable doing all the work. Pic: G.Willoughby.
While ESB Networks has apologised for the “confusion and concern” caused, the seriousness of the incident goes far beyond inconvenience. Customers reported seeing apparent one-day electricity costs rise to extraordinary levels, in some cases hundreds or even thousands of euro, with usage figures so extreme that they should have been immediately recognised as impossible, by any functioning validation system. Reports included daily costs of €738 and €2,500; figures that have prompted widespread disbelief and anger.
The incident has exposed what appears to be a major failure in internal controls. If abnormal readings of that scale were able to pass through ESB Networks’ systems and appear on customer-facing accounts, it raises unavoidable questions about the adequacy of testing, monitoring and escalation procedures surrounding critical software changes. A planned upgrade to a nationally significant metering system should not have been capable of producing such obviously absurd outcomes without immediate containment. That it did so points to a deeply troubling lapse in operational assurance.
Perhaps most damaging is the lack of clarity over duration. ESB Networks has identified the trigger as last Friday’s software upgrade, but there is still no full public explanation of how long the issue remained live, when it was first detected internally, how many customers were affected, or whether warning signs emerged before the problem became visible to the public. In the absence of that detail, there is every reason for customers to ask whether this issue was caught promptly at all, or whether it only gained urgency once consumers began highlighting impossible charges online.
ESB Networks has insisted that the issue is internal, that smart meters themselves remain reliable, and that affected data will be corrected automatically with no action required from customers. But reassurance alone is unlikely to restore confidence. With smart meters intended to deliver accuracy, transparency and trust, this episode represents a significant reputational failure. ESB Networks must now do more than fix the numbers; it must explain, in full, how this happened, how long it persisted, and why customers were left to discover the problem before the system did.
Pre-deceased by his wife Biddy, son Patrick, infant daughter Margaret and parents Peggy and Bill; the passing of Mr Campion is most deeply regretted, sadly missed and lovingly remembered by his sorrowing family; loving daughters Esther, Maggie, Marion and Bridget, his adored grandchildren Dean, Amy, Sinead, Louise, Katie, Adam, Kelly and Sean, great grandchildren Kaylaa, Joey and Lilly, brothers Christy and Liam, sisters-in-law Mary and Mai, nephews, nieces, extended relatives, neighbours and a wide circle of friends.
For those persons who would wish to attend Requiem Mass for Mr Campion, but for reasons cannot, same can be viewed streamed live online, HERE.
The extended Campion family wish to express their appreciation for your understanding at this difficult time, and have made arrangements for those persons wishing to send messages of condolence, to use the link shown HERE.
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