Rent increases “of up to 100%” for some Wicklow Council tenants will go ahead despite efforts to halt the move.
Wicklow County Council is set to introduce a controversial new rent scheme, after a vote to stop the scheme was lost on Monday night.
Sinn Fein had served a Section 140 motion, which would have allowed the council’s 32 elected members to direct the executive to halt the increase.
Councillors in South Dublin recently used the same mechanism to suspend planned rent increases.
Hundreds of tenants contacted councillors about letters they had received from the Council in September informing them of rent increases which were set to come into effect on October 3rd. Following an emergency meeting last week and a protest by tenants, the rent increases for council tenants were delayed until November.
More than 7,500 tenants were assessed, leading to 4,519 rent accounts being recalculated.
Independent Councilor Joe Behan, who is a former TD for Fianna Fáil, said in a video on Monday night that it “bad news” the new scheme was to go ahead.
Prior to the vote, the councillor said that “thousands” of people in County Wicklow would be having a “sleepless night tonight worrying about the huge rent increases proposed by the Council Chief Executive.”
Mr Behan said he intended to fight what he described as an “extremely unfair proposal” as he sought the support of colleagues to create a “fairer” rent scheme.
Wicklow County Council introduced the Differential Rent Scheme following the first full rent review carried out since 2019. The new unified scheme sets a minimum rent of €30 per week and replaces two previous schemes in the county with one income-based system.
The Council has defended the scheme, saying that rent will now be calculated based on assessable household income, rather than the size of the council property. It also removes the previous maximum rent cap of €200, while child maintenance and carer’s allowance will no longer be assessed as income.
At a meeting last week inside the Council chamber, housing official Caroline Fox claimed some households now have net incomes exceeding €120,000, resulting in weekly rents above €500. She cited other examples, including the case of a pensioner’s rent rising from €38.10 to €48.50 and a working parent with two dependants seeing rent increase from €69.20 to €124.
However, councillors claimed that the examples cited did not reflect the level of “distress” felt by some tenants who were already struggling with bills and the cost of living.
Some tenants have said that their rents are increasing by 50%, 100% or even more, despite claiming that their household income has remained unchanged since the previous review was carried out,
The Council has defended the review, saying that it is the first full review that has been carried out in seven years, and that household incomes and circumstances for those impacted have changed substantially. However, some have questioned whether the council is effectively playing catch up after years without a review, and whether that has inflated the increases.
Cllr Warren O’Toole said that 87% of tenants were facing rent increases, adding that he had spoken with an elderly man “crying on the phone” after he was notified of a 100% increase.