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THE GOVERNMENT’S MORTGAGE to rent scheme has only completed 282 cases since 2012, a figure that has been described as “pitifully low”.
The figure was released to Fianna Fáil’s finance spokesperson Michael McGrath via parliamentary question, who said that neither the government nor the Housing Agency “has a desire to fund the mortgage to rent scheme”.
McGrath’s condemnation of the scheme comes in a week where homeless families living in hotels has been highlighted, with a number being told to leave the Gresham Hotel by the end of the month.
The mortgage to rent scheme is a mechanism whereby homeowners in mortgage arrears will sell their home to a housing association, and they can still live in that home paying rent to a local authority.
People remain in their home as a social housing tenant, and cannot be evicted. The government says it offers “peace of mind”, people pay “an income-based affordable rent”, and there is the option to buy back your home after five years if your financial situation improves.
In his reply to McGrath, Housing Minister Eoghan Murphy said that, since the scheme’s introduction in 2012, a total of 3,765 cases had been submitted to the end of September.
Of these 2,909 were deemed not to be eligible. As per guidelines from the Housing Agency, there are a number of criteria that people must meet, including completing the mortgage arrears resolution process with the lender, property must not exceed a certain value and the household’s income must not exceed a certain level.
A total of 282 cases were successful, while the other 574 were being actively progressed, Murphy said.
He added: “Following a review of the mortgage to rent (MTR) Scheme, published on 8 February 2017, a range of amendments to the eligibility criteria and administration of the MTR scheme came into effect to enable more properties to qualify and to make the scheme more flexible and accessible to borrowers.”
The Minister said that recommendations in this review would be implemented to try to bring its benefits to more people. An additional €5 million has also been allocated to the scheme.
Murphy also admitted that the current way the scheme is funded “may not be capable of delivering the scale of successful cases that could benefit from the scheme over time”.
As a result, “alternative funding models” for the scheme were being examined, including working with a number of “financial entities who have expressed an interest” in working on the scheme to progress a number of “alternative long-term lease arrangements”.
Fianna Fáil’s McGrath was not impressed with this answer. He said: “Minister Eoghan Murphy’s Dáil reply to me talks about ‘reviews’, ‘alternative funding models’ and ‘pilot operating models’.
There is no talk of individuals, families and the daily misery of facing the prospect of losing your home – a prospect that is a reality for far too many… Perhaps they privately believe that it is the borrower’s own fault for getting into that situation.
He said that with tens of thousands of family homes in arrears, it would be natural to expect the government to make sure its mortgage to rent scheme was functioning properly to provide that “safety net”.
He also highlighted the recent launch of another mortgage to rent scheme, delivered by AIB, the Irish Mortgage Holders Organisation and social housing organisation iCare, as “the only source of hope for some borrowers”.
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How about people not leave beaches strewn with half eaten sandwiches and other rubbish for seagulls to feast on. No wonder they think they can get handy grub from people.
This is it. They’re as smart as a dog an as easily domesticated by free food.
it wouldn’t take a genius to feed them properly for filling a bin.
Maybe if idiots put there food in a bin ..The poor birds wouldn’t bother them.
I’ve tackled a few aggressive birds in my time.
Horrible little shits are really coming alive the last week or two. The young grey ones with their whistly screech are awful, we are often woken by the tap tap of one pecking on our skylight. Very tempting to get some kind of air rifle at them
What they need to do is introduce Anti-Seagull Behaviour Orders, or ASBOs for short.
Shoot the feckers, there’s way too many of them anyway.
No there is not too many. Populations declining & actually threatened in Ireland
get yourself to howth on a sunny day my man!
Ah but are the thousands of littering Irish not the problem? Instead of the evolved scavenger doing what it evolved to do?
Birds of prey are declining rapidly, but seagulls? Come on, seriously, wake up. They’re everywhere.
This is from UK but relevant here. Simple fact is gulls populations are in serious decline with herring & great black baxked gulls both red listed. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/wildlife/9533420/Seagulls-invade-cities-because-of-collapse-of-fishing-and-rise-in-recycling-food.html
all the natural predators of seagulls are gone now thanks to us. look at what happened to the passenger pigeon in the states or myxomatosis with rabbits. when you mess with mother nature it has repercussions.
The COMMON GULL no such thing as a Seagull (although the term is commonly used so it may as well be accepted and only needs to be officially acknowledged, which would save so much grief but I digress) anyway, the gull do have a natural predator and it’s US, but in the UK they are a protected species (I don’t know about here), I think it was because people were eating them to extinction and their eggs make great custard (em allegedly). So it is a problem of their own making……. no pity whatsoever.
America is the natural predator of the COMMON GULL??
I saw a documentary on this in the 60s, think it was called the birds, it didn’t end well, we must round up the trouble makers at once and send them to Greece, as an additional punitive clause in the bailout package.
ALL the sand eels and mackerel sprat are no more due to the pollution of our seas , I noticed that all the seaweed on the east coast is black from pollution. The gulls are starving and taking it out on us dirty humans.
Cull the flying rats!
Prefer a seagull shitting on me from above and robbing the food from my kids hands than this Cameron chap
Too many Seagulls, and not enough recipes
They’ll probably fight them on the beaches…
250000 to research seagulls! What will it possibly tell you that common sense doesn’t.
Some are cheeky, shoot them.
Not all seagulls are cheeky. Some are intelligent and friendly.
http://jrnl.ie/2221490
Rule Brittania
It’d be a real quandary for the posters here if this site had a poll: Who would you like to see die more, seagulls or people floating in rafts in the Mediterranean?
David Cameron best friend is Senator Ted O Sullivan as seagulls have lost the run of themselves
Gay marriage and now this !!
We should all just pitch fork it up. Grab your torches people were going gill hunting.
Really. seagulls are getting out of hand! Really!
There were seagulls in Yorkshire??? Has Yorkshire a coastline??
yes.
Sorry!!! I was thinking of West Yorkshire wedged between Cumbria and North Yorkshire!! Yorkshire is like Tipperary with the different Ridings!! Stunning coastline I might add!!
No part of West Yorkshire is anywhere near Cumbria.
I think you might find the South eastern section of Cumbria is within the Yorkshire Dales National park and borders Yorkshire!! :)
pigeons are the real problem, horrible birds
You wank them seagulls
angry birds
have your say