Elderly residents in Dublin complex face 26% rent rise

A number of people who live in a State-funded senior citizens’ complex in Dublin face increases of up to 26 per cent in the rent charged by the Catholic body that owns it.

Fr Scully House, 99 apartments near Mountjoy Square built in late 2014 for €17 million, was at the centre of a seven-month rent dispute between the Catholic Housing Aid Society (Chas) and Dublin City Council which was resolved in early 2015.

The society wanted to charge an average monthly rent of €580 for the apartments, but the council argued the average weekly rent for housing built with full State funding was €66 to €68.

Following a meeting with then minister for the environment Alan Kelly, the Catholic Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin and the housing agency, two rent agreements were reached.

Under the first agreement, 23 tenants who had been residents of the old Fr Scully House complex, before its demolition and regeneration, would continue to pay the monthly rent of just over €316 they paid in their temporary accommodation while waiting for the apartments to be completed.

Dispute

Under the second agreement, a monthly rent of €400 was set for the 76 remaining apartments, which were to be allocated to older people on the city council’s housing waiting list.

Last month, the society’s administrator wrote to the 21 former tenants still living in the complex to say their rent would be increased to €400 from September 1st. It offered tenants the right of appeal on the grounds of “difficult financial circumstances”.

Residents’ association chairman Anthony Egan said the rent was only set at €400 for new residents so the council and the society could reach an agreement to end the impasse which had left newly built apartments empty.

He pointed out that tenants in other apartments directly behind Fr Scully house, which were also owned by the society, paid €316 a month.

‘No increase since 2009’

Mr Egan also said the majority of the 21 tenants wanted to be represented by the residents’ association, and not deal directly with the society, and were concerned about the amount of financial information being sought by the society.

A spokesman for the society said: “The tenants concerned would be aware that there is a standard clause in their lease allowing for yearly rent reviews but there has been no increase for these tenants since 2009.”

In relation to the neighbouring blocks owned by the society, where tenants remained on rents of €316.33, the spokesman said these were older buildings and had been let unfurnished.

“The rent levels for Father Scully House were agreed between Chas and Dublin City Council and reflected the substantial operating costs involved in maintaining a brand new state-of-the-art social housing complex.”

The apartments also come fully furnished he said.

Of the 21 tenants, 11 decided to deal directly with the society and not be represented by the residents’ association, the spokesman said.

He said under data protection rules the society would need written permission from an individual tenant to say they wished to be represented by the tenants association and no such letter had been received.

He said the society did intend to increase the rent from this week and hoped all tenants would honour their rental agreements, he said.

The original Fr Scully House, a complex of 45 senior citizens’ bedsits, was built in the late 1960s on land granted to the society by the then Dublin Corporation. The complex was vacated in 2006 and demolished. The society, founded in 1966 by Jesuit priest Fr Tom Scully is chaired by Dan O’Connor.