DUBLIN City Council has initiated eviction proceedings against 626 households living in local authority accommodation. The council has also revealed that more than 2,000 households are more than a year behind in the rent they owe the council.
Dublin city manager John Tierney told Fine Gael councilllor Ruairi McGinley that almost 1,150 of those households in rental arrears have repayment agreements in place, which are individually tailored to each tenant and then monitored by arrears supervisors in the rent arrears section.
“I’m surprised by the levels of people more than a year in arrears and equally on the number of evictions,” said McGinley. “I think there is a distinction between people who can’t pay and people who won’t pay. There’s obviously people who have difficult situations and are in difficult circumstances. I think though that there are people abusing the system who are in a position to pay but choose not to.”
He has since sought an explanation of what is happening with the 287 households who are more than a year behind in their rent and who are neither on repayment plans nor facing evictions.
Single people with a net income of up to €35,000 qualify for local authority housing in the Dublin City Council area, according to Department of the Environment guidelines. An average worker in Ireland earns about €35,000 per annum according to the most recent figures from the Central Statistics Office.
The rent for social housing is based on a tenant’s ability to pay, so the lower the income, the lower the rent paid. If your income increases, so will your rent, according to the Citizens Information Board. The income of any other household members is added to the rent calculation.
It was also revealed earlier this week that 62 properties funded by mortgages provided by local authorities were repossessed last year, bringing the total number to 128 since the start of 2005. The latest figures from the Local Government Management Services Board (LGMSB) show that local authority mortgage arrears are running at just over 15 per cent.
