Monaghan County Council has once again recorded the lowest social housing vacancy rate in the country, with just 0.52% of its homes lying empty at the end of 2025, according to the latest performance figures from the National Oversight and Audit Commission (NOAC).
It is the second year in a row that Monaghan has led the national table, Northern Sound reported on Friday. The county also had the shortest average re-letting time in Ireland, getting vacant council houses back to tenants in 11.61 weeks. The national average is still above 32 weeks.
How Monaghan compares
NOAC's Local Authority Performance Indicator Report for 2025, the twelfth edition of the annual review, covers 46 indicators across 11 areas of council work. It found that 3,866 local authority homes were vacant across the State at the end of last year, down from 4,251 a year earlier. That puts the overall vacancy rate at 2.44%, the lowest since 2015.
Twelve councils came in under 2%, up from seven in 2024. Monaghan's 0.52% was well clear of the next best, Wexford at 0.94% and Laois at 1.13%. Neighbouring Louth recorded 1.55%.
On re-letting, the gap is starker. Monaghan re-let 61 homes in 2025 at an average cost of €21,390 each and an average turnaround of 11.61 weeks. Laois was next at 16.07 weeks, followed by Sligo at 20.71 weeks. At the other end of the table, empty homes in Kerry took an average of 66.12 weeks to re-let, Limerick City and County 56.50 weeks and Kildare 49.24 weeks.
The report says re-letting times nationally have shown little improvement despite substantial increases in spending on getting vacant homes ready for new tenants.
Highest spend on upkeep
The figures also show Monaghan spending more than any other council on maintaining each home it owns. Repair and maintenance cost €3,140.70 per unit in the county in 2025, up from €2,864.61 the year before. The lowest figure nationally was €885.90, in Mayo.
Across all councils, €300.8 million was spent on social housing maintenance last year, up 6.57% on 2024. However, the number of homes added to council stock nationally fell by 18.78%.
Other Monaghan results
Monaghan scored well on several other measures in the report:
- It collected 98% of commercial rates due, among the strongest in the country alongside Waterford, Fingal and Meath.
- Its libraries had the highest usage, at 5.69 visits per person against a national average of 3.09. Active library membership in the county fell by 4%, however.
- It again had the lowest share of paid working days lost to self-certified sick leave among council staff, at 0.12%.
Northern Sound noted that earlier NOAC reports had also found Monaghan to have one of the best re-letting records in the country and the highest proportional increase in housing stock nationally.
What NOAC said
NOAC, which oversees the performance of local government but does not set policy or hand out funding, said wide variation between councils remains one of the report's main findings.
Its chair, Michael McCarthy, said the commission particularly welcomed "the continued reduction in local authority housing vacancies and the strong financial performance achieved by many authorities".
The full report, with council-by-council tables on housing, roads, waste, planning, fire services, libraries and finance, is available on the NOAC website.
