Mayo County Council eyes modular housing as social housing solution

MAYO County Council's Housing Strategic Policy Committee has discussed plans to develop serviced sites and explore modular housing as potential solutions to the county's growing housing shortage, with councillors calling for urgent action to help working families priced out of the rental market.

By Jack Good Published 2nd Jun 2026, 13:00 BST A modular house is fitted into place MAYO County Council's Housing Strategic Policy Committee has discussed plans to develop serviced sites and explore modular housing as potential solutions to the county's growing housing shortage, with councillors calling for urgent action to help working families priced out of the rental market. The meeting heard proposals for a pilot programme to develop serviced sites — plots with water, electricity and sewerage connections already in place — which would be sold at a discounted rate to prospective homeowners to build on. While members had hoped for a minimum of ten sites, with twenty considered ideal, the Council 's immediate plans centre on a smaller initial rollout.

Catherine McConnell, Director of Services for Housing , confirmed that Mayo County Council 's land in Mayo Abbey — which has capacity for four to five serviced sites — will proceed as the first phase of the pilot. Drawing on advice from Tipperary County Council, she defended the modest scale of the initial scheme.

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“The Mayo Abbey site allows us, because we own it, it's serviced already. We can sell those sites to the kind of people that you're all talking about. And then, if that is successful, you can build on it,” she told the committee, adding that the Council should “start where we know there is no risk in terms of buying land.”

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Not everyone was satisfied with the pace of progress. Cllr Peter Flynn dismissed the proposed five-site scheme as “a waste of time”, while Cllr Michael Kilcoyne argued that the concept of serviced sites was well established and questioned why delivery was proving so difficult.

“The council has loads of land — all we have to do is put in serviced sites,” Cllr Kilcoyne told the meeting.

McConnell pushed back on that characterisation, however. “We don't have loads of land, unfortunately. I wish we did, but we actually don't. We don't have large land banks there, and that is one of the things that I would probably be looking at with the team in housing — where can we go to buy land?”

Cllr Flynn called for an inventory of all council-owned land parcels of at least five acres, broken down by residential and commercial use, to be circulated ahead of the next meeting. He also noted that he had already put forward three potential sites in Westport for the Council to purchase, and urged colleagues to arrive at the next meeting with something concrete to bring to the Department of the Environment.

Encapsulating the common refrain among the councillors for the sites to be in large population centres, he said, “Can I just ask that we don't come in here again and say, look, there's another small field in Bohola or fecking Newport — that we come back with something of substance.”

Cllr Harry Barrett struck an urgent tone, pointing to the real-world consequences of the county's housing shortage. He highlighted the case of Westport woman Klaudia Barrett, who had spoken to The Mayo News about her family's struggle to find somewhere to rent despite both she and her husband being in full-time employment.

“In modern Ireland, no working couple should face having to go to Charlestown. There should be sufficient affordable homes for working people in this county,” the Castlebar-based councillor said.

He warned that the current system was fundamentally broken, with social housing conversions and short-term letting platforms alike reducing the pool of properties available for long-term renters and pushing up costs. “We will never satisfy the rental needs of working people in this country at the pace we're going at the moment, and it's going to need a serious, serious intervention," he said.

The committee also discussed the potential of modular housing to speed up delivery of social homes. Cllr Flynn described a visit to a local modular home manufacturer as “an eye opener”, noting that the company was operating well below capacity despite the wider construction sector running flat out.

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“To find out that it's only operating at a fraction of its capacity — at a time when the construction industry is at full capacity — was incredible,” he said. He added that the manufacturer could scale up quickly but required bulk orders of 40, 50, 100 or 200 units to make it viable.

McConnell confirmed that the Council is “potentially looking at modular housing as a way of delivering our social homes”, describing it as one of the options being actively considered. She also noted the existence of a national scheme allowing any local authority to sell serviced sites to self-builders, though she acknowledged that even with a maximum discount of €30,000, land acquisition and servicing costs could put sites beyond the reach of many prospective buyers.

Cllr Barrett said serviced sites were “the raw material for solving the housing crisis” noting that a modular home could be installed rapidly once a site was ready. Cllr Flynn recalled his own parents purchasing a serviced site in the 1970s and building on it over two decades, arguing that the model remained as relevant today as it was then.

Related topics: Cllr Peter Flynn Mayo County Council Housing Castlebar Mayo Social Housing Airbnb Sign up to our Mayo Live newsletter Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know you can manage your profile, and explore all of the available newsletters from Mayo Live within your account.