anger at €500 fees for renting to homeless
LOCAL authorities are offering letting agents €500 in “placement fees” for renting homes and apartments to the homeless.
They will be paid by the Dublin Region Homeless Executive when a Housing Assistance Payment tenant has moved into the property. Sinn Fein TD Eoin O Broin called the incentive “a sign of increasing desperation”.
The Institute of Professional Auctioneers And Valuers said the offer could be considered a conflict of interest as letting agents are already being paid to rent out properties on behalf of the landlord.
Chief executive Patrick Davitt told RTE’S Morning Ireland that while they support the HAP and it’s a “very good social incentive”, receiving a fee from two different parties is “a different thing altogether”.
A DRHE spokesman admitted it was aware of “the competition in the current climate for accommodation” but said this measure helped to identify and secure available properties.
THE country must be in a bad way when the State has resorted to bribing estate agents to rent houses to homeless families. You know it’s an even worse predicament when the property firms have had to remind local authorities this might be against the law.
This is proof, if needed, that Fine Gael will do almost anything rather then build social housing.
When the Irish Tory Government are ideologically opposed to constructing houses which ordinary people can afford and insist on using the private rental market to resolve the homeless crisis, this stunt was to be expected.
The result of offering estate agents a €500 placement fee will be to drive up rents further but then aren’t many Fine Gael TDS and senators landlords?
On the other hand fair play to the companies for pointing out such a move would pose a conflict of interest.
The Institute of Professional Auctioneers & Valuers said in most cases the letting agent has a binding contract with those who engage them and can legally only act for that party.
The development smacks of utter desperation as Fine Gael belatedly realise the homeless crisis is spiralling totally out of control for one simple reason – there’s not enough houses.
Why can’t the Government of what is considered a wealthy country build a few thousand homes for people?
That’s the sort of question a lot of those who voted for Peter Casey in the presidential poll have been asking but deep down they probably know why.
Didn’t a Fine Gael minister let it slip they didn’t want to create “ghettos” which is another way of saying workingclass estates where they’d be lucky to get a
single Fine Gael vote. No, better to leave it to the private sector where young couples will be struggling to pay big mortgages and high rent so they can dangle the odd Budget goodie in front of them to keep them on side.
That is why Casey caused such a stir among the Establishment. He might hold some unpalatable views about Travellers but when a nobody comes from nowhere and gets more than 20% of first-preference votes, they worry.
Put it this way, if Leo Varadkar is looking after those who get up early in the morning, which he’s not, the ex-dragons’ Den star represents those who stay up late worrying and go to sleep with a shotgun under their bed.
Since the election I’ve spoken to many people who admitted voting for the tycoon and none had anything against Travellers. Most did it out of sheer anger at a system that has used and abused them. It was Casey’s call to those who pay for everything and get nothing that struck a chord. In essence it was a protest vote.
Another columnist claimed people who backed Casey belonged to a section engaging in the “politics of spleen” sweeping across the democratic world.
I don’t think so, it’s down to the disgust felt by many that the wealthiest people in Ireland are paying less tax than them due to the loopholes left lying around by this Government.
When they put an X after Casey’s name they might also have been doing so because the corporation they work for is paying no levies at all while nearly half their wage last Friday was swallowed up by PAYE, USC, PRSI and income tax.
It is also easy to understand why the well off can’t comprehend why intelligent people would vote for the businessman, who appeared to have little interest in his supporters’ welfare.
But the other way of looking at it is these people previously put their trust in the main parties and the last 10 years has proved to them they don’t give a toss about ordinary workers.
People would be actually terrified to vote for Labour again because of their betrayal of the working class and then there was the little matter of inviting their vulture friends in to feather their nests at our expense.
Working families are also angry at being taxed to the hilt, yet having one of the worst health services in Europe.
As if to emphasise how out of touch our Tory Boy Taoiseach is, he came out thundering about how the result in the blasphemy referendum was a small step towards creating a 21st century Constitution.
How about a modern health service or even a council house building programme, which they could manage in the 1950s?
Why can’t the State build a few thousand new homes