Almost one quarter of all homes in Fermanagh are unfit to live in, according to a new survey.

The Northern Ireland House Condition Survey 1991 was published by the Housing Executive last week.

It found that there was a level of 23.3 per cent unfit homes in Fermanagh, compared with the Province-wide average of 8.8 per cent.

According to the survey, the majority of the unfit dwellings in Fermanagh are in rural areas and in particular isolated areas, making Fermanagh “stand out” as the area with the highest rate of unfitness in Northern Ireland.

A Housing Executive spokesman vowed this week that the Executive would continue in its fight against unfitness through the latest grants legislation.

It has been widely accepted for a number of years that Fermanagh’s number of unfit homes was higher than anywhere in the Province. However, these figures still surprised some Executive officials.

The survey, which is the most comprehensive ever carried out here, listed nine particular points from which the level of fitness of a house could be drawn. They ranged from whether or not the house was structurally stable to whether it had a piped supply of water.

It found that vacant dwellings were in the worst condition, although those occupied were not significantly lower.

As for Fermanagh, out of a total of 18,620 homes, 4,330 were deemed to be unfit, while Omagh had 1,750 out of a total of 14,300.