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THERE IS “SYSTEMIC discrimination” in the Irish rental market against people in receipt of housing welfare payments, according to the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission (IHREC).
Chief commissioner Emily Logan made her comments in the IHREC annual report for 2018 which was published today.
Problems surrounding housing and welfare payments will continue unless the issue is “comprehensively tackled”, Logan said.
Since 2016, it has been illegal to discriminate against people in receipt of housing assistance payment (HAP), rent supplement or other social welfare payments.
Despite this, housing assistance issues remain one of the most common reasons for people to contact the IHREC’s Your Rights information service.
People in receipt of housing welfare payments can take discrimination cases before the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC).
However, Logan said “enforcement of Irish discrimination law relies heavily on the individual complaints-led model”, and as a result it can pose challenges to those seeking to take a complaint.
For individuals who may be at risk of homelessness, and are focused on finding a place to live, it is unreasonable to expect that they can refocus their energies on pursuing a complaint.
“It is apparent that there is systemic discrimination against people in receipt of housing social welfare payments,” Logan said.
“Enforcement of the housing assistance ground before the WRC alone is not and cannot be the solution to this problem and further initiatives will need to be explored if this issue is to be comprehensively tackled.”
Annual report
In general, the IHREC dealt with 1,711 queries from the public last year.
The top three public concerns related to the Equal Status Acts, focused on discrimination on the grounds of disability (33%) housing assistance (22%) and race (15%).
The top three public concerns under the Employment Equality Acts focused on discrimination in employment and job seeking on the grounds of disability (30%), gender (25%) and the race ground (16%).
Meanwhile, the Commission grants of legal advice or legal representation in new cases grew by 40% from the previous year seeing a range of cases taken up relating to discrimination and human rights issues.
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I wonder why?
The only real workable solution is building social housing and not relying on the private rental market which was never intended to deal with the nature and scale of housing needs but then FFG would need to act and that’s another reality.
The Local Authorities got out of housing for the very same reasons private landlords don’t was HAP tenants.
@Honeybee: Build affordable housing too.. There’s a shortage of that everywhere.
@Rob Cahill: and maybe some inservice training for the Government on what affordable means.
@Frainc Ó Broin: Absolutely agree , it is a nightmare for young families starting out, both above and below the arbitrary financial thresholds which measure affordability and which bear no relation to house prices.
@Honeybee: social housing has worked out very well in places like Tallaght lol
@Towger: Utter nonsense. The local authorities stopped building social housing due to direct policy and funding decisions from the Government. Most local authorities wanted to continue building social housing but FFFG councillors blocked the moves repeatedly over the last number of years by either downright blocking or trying to force in 80/20 private/public divide on all new developments on public lands.
@Kevin Lonergan: I hate petty political scoring but SF were on lots of local councils over the time things were handled badly. Never forget the local councils took cash over getting 10% of housing being built which they were to spend on housing. They mismanaged this money and failed to build. All local councils did this and they certainly weren’t run by the same parties during this time. All local councils are responsible for this .
@Honeybee: it’s not that they won’t act it’s that fine gael in particular is ideologically opposed to building social housing due to their neoliberal stance and belief that the “free market” should sort things out…because it’s worked *fantastically* so far for the people of Ireland…for them and their rich buddies at least…
If someone doesn’t pay the rent then they either need to leave property or the government needs to put in a system whereby it will cover the cost until things are sorted.
Asking a landlord (many of whom are accidental landlords) to pay double mortgages they can’t afford as well as cover all the legal costs just won’t work. Discrimination is based on the system in place not on the people using it. Change the system and things will improve.
Not being able to afford something should never have been added as a grounds for discrimination. The old claim was HAP artificially kept rent prices high. When rents dropped and people were in legally binding contracts the government told those on HAP to tell the landlords to reduce the rent or they would break the lease.
The government want to bring in fines to landlords who have anti social tenants too.
So the government want to force landlords to take HAP where the tenant can suddenly have the benefit cut and the landlord has to struggle for over a year to remove them. Meanwhile they will be fined while the tenant is anti social. Even with that not an issue the HAP tenant may randomly insist on a rent deduction.
There is joined up thinking and then there is no planning
I am well off and I feel discriminated against because the Government won’t give me a free house and won’t give me a house on HAP.
@Tim McCormack29: Social housing is not free housing. Rents are decided on a differential rent system according to the income of the tenant. All local authority tenants pay rent on their houses or flats. Even with the lowest rent tenants occupying properties, these properties pay for themselves and become income generators for local authorities after a period of time. The social housing stock was considered very important to local authorities until government decided to follow thatcherite policies from the UK and sell off older stock without replacing them.
@Tim McCormack29: Usual lying mantra fro the blueshirts.
@Kevin Lonergan: no local housing has ever been an income generator. The income often derived from state payments thus the government paying local authorities. The maintenance and upgrading of these also costs a lot. At present they are putting external insulation on them at about 10k a pop. The councils also sold the social housing stock at huge discounts. They don’t make income of social housing it is all costs and that is without talking about non payment of rent
@Kevin Lonergan: Please provide the figures that show local authority houses are a nil cost, let alone make a profit for the local authority.
It’s a FG thing to despise the poor, the low waged, the less well off.
@Dave Doyle: it’s also the Irish way, as every election shows that the majority of the public are happy with FFG.
Despite all the screaming, all the shock, all the disgust thrown at the two main parties on these boards, they continue to get elected, and will continue to for a very long time to come
@Bill Clay: no it doesn’t, you absolute clown. They got 25% in the last elections. That’s 75% they didn’t get and you say the majority of the public are happy. They keep getting in because people feel disconnected and don’t think their vote will make any difference. There’s a lot more of them than there is of you. They’re just disorganised
@Joe Phillips: What nonsense People vote for their own self interest and for the policies put forward. We have an intelligent electorate who are happy with the status quo and don’t want the loony left taking over!
@Dave Doyle:
Please spare me the crocodile tears Dave. The poor, the low waged, the less well off elements of society will always be with us.
Most of these people have made poor lifestyle choices, usually from an early age, having scant regard to education, an aversion to work ethic, or are usually content to work in mundane jobs.
Re-Educate.
Work Harder.
Be independent.
@Joe Phillips:
FFG, not FG (you absolute clown). How could the current government form a government with only 27% of the vote?
@Dave Doyle: and they are the biggest party in the state, so some of your comrades must be voting for them
@Colonel Grant: Is that you W.T.?
@Bill Clay: FG leading a minority government, a party that lost 26 seats in GE2016, kept in power by the means of secret backroom deals with a supposed opposition party FF. That sort of popularity?
@Dave Doyle:
Yes Dave, the FFG vote that increased in the last national election
@Patrick Nolan: No it hasn’t Partick, in fact the combined vote for FFG is in constant decline since 1983.
@Dave Doyle:
Correct and it increased in the last national election.
@Bill Clay: no it’s not fine gael have between 25 and 30% of the vote which they always have and always will …the upper middle class and super rich who like to keep things the way they are because they have a vested interest in doing so …unfortunately as we saw in the last local elections the people who suffer most under their policies are also the ones who don’t bother there holes coming out to vote..
@Colonel Grant: what complete and utter nonsense that completely dismisses undermines and ignores countless societal factors: seen and unseen, advantages and privileges granted to the “more fortunate”…realistically apart from extreme outliers (and there is a reason they’re outliers) people’s general levels of success, wealth and a lot and life are purely arbitrary and based on luck and this “by the bootstraps” b******* is probably the most successful lie that has come about as a result of capitalism in the West it’s a lie the comfortably middle-class and above tell themselves to convince themselves that they are somehow more deserving, talented or special than the people on the breadline or those being made homeless…that their luck in life such as it is, is not entirely arbitrary and beyond their control to a large extent. And most importantly poor people must have an inherent deficiency so what happened to them could NEVER HAPPEN TO ME.
The government is “wishing homelessness away” and bringing in ever more complex measures to penalise those naughty private landlords while bulk off-loading Nama properties to zero-tax foreign entities. The socialists are running the show now and wondering why nobody wants to rent their houses out at below market rates. It would be funny if it wasn’t so tragic for all involved- including the vulnerable and the tax payers footing the bill for all this incompetence.
We dont have housing problem this has always been an issue from every village to every town to city there has always been a large amount of council housing in the early days some homes provide by factories then a small portion of private homes. The problem now councils are not building money from buying cc homes went into councillors pockets it should of went into building more. The big employers like the old days should provide accommodation or the government zone land that can only be sold times the minimum wage.
@Craic_a_tower: Surely people are free to live how they like? Are you suggesting removing people from their homes to smaler places and putting larger families in?
@Rob Cahill: weird that the comment was deleted. A tax incentive could be used along with encouragement to convert some housing to be suitable for OAP
@Craic_a_tower: so you think I should put my 85 year old mother out of the house she and my late father built up for 60 years because suddenly it’s too big for her. Tough fromage. It ain’t happening.
They face it here too
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