Greg DalyHomelessness campaigners have cautiously welcomed the latest package of measures agreed by the Government to address the country’s homelessness crisis.
After a cabinet meeting on Tuesday, ministers Alan Kelly and Michael Noonan announced a series of measures including barring landlords from increasing residential rents for two years, obliging property owners to give longer notice to tenants of rental increases or eviction, and 100% mortgage interest relief for landlords who house social tenants.
“The measures that are being proposed are welcome,” Francis Doherty of the Peter McVerry Trust told The Irish Catholic, continuing, “They should make a difference. It’s not what we wanted in terms of rent certainty, but they will help the rental market over the next four years.”
“The two-year fixed contract should help,” he said, explaining that plans to continue this through to 2019 “should give us time to make a big dent in social housing supply.” He also praised the introduction of a tax incentive for landlords to take on rent supplement tenants, which the trust had campaigned for in its pre-budget submission.
Mike Allen of Focus Ireland agreed, saying “what’s in the package seems good – it’s stuff we’ve been asking for”.
He singled out especially how the Government plans to introduce higher levels of proof and stronger penalties for landlords who illegally evict people when falsely claiming that such evictions were necessary as they were selling their properties. Insisting that Focus has never been anti-landlord, he said they “have always argued that tax reliefs for landlords should be increased”, and welcomed plans to introduce this.
Expressing regret about how details of the package had been leaked in advance, potentially giving landlords an opportunity to raise rents, Mr Doherty said “the leak has real potential to cause a spike in homelessness,” while both campaigners felt the failure to increase rent supplements was a missed opportunity.
“The central argument against this till now was that it could add to price increases in rental markets”, said Mr Doherty, but, Mr Allen pointed out, now that the Government is to impose a two-year rent freeze, “there’s no reason not to act on rent supplements”.