Tipperary councillors’ vote on Carers’ Allowance deferred until later this year

A motion that would exclude the Carers’ Allowance and the Working Family Payment from council rent calculations has been deferred until later this year.

The motion was brought to this week’s Tipperary County Council plenary meeting by councillors Jim Ryan, Mairin McGrath, Richie Molloy, Seamus Morris and AnneMarie Ryan and reads:

“We are proposing that from 2024, Tipperary County Council disregards the Carers Allowance/Benefit and the Working Family Payment when calculating the rent of our council tenants.”

Speaking in favour of the motion Cllr Richie Molloy said that those in receipt of Carers Allowance have gone through all necessary income checks.

Caring is their full-time job, and the state payment is small as it is.

Cllr Molloy pointed out that the carers allowance is €230 a week.

If a person is caring full-time, that amounts to about €1 an hour, he said.

“There are a lot of costs when caring for someone; heating and medical appointments can really bring down an income no more now with the cost of living so high,” said Cllr Molloy.

He said although it may be government policy to keep a person in their home longer, not much by way of support is given.

He said there is a lot of ‘lip service’ paid to carers, but this is something practical the council can do.

Cllr Annemarie Ryan said the response from the council to the motion says rent is about 19% of the person’s income.

But she said given the costs of caring, this is not a “realistic comparison”.

She also pointed out that the council does not count carer’s payments for the tenant purchase scheme.

So, that income is only counted if the carer rents from the local authority and not if they buy.

She told the council carers save the health service millions by doing what they do.

Cllr Mairin McGrath said that other councils disregard both the carers allowance and the working family payment.

“If other councils can do it, why can’t we do it,” said Cllr McGrath.

Cllr Morris expressed his frustration at the council’s written answer and asked members to ignore it and vote anyway.

FACTORS AT PLAY

Director of Services for Housing Sinead Carr said there were several factors councillors needed to factor in.

She said that rent contributions are about 19% of a person’s income, and that money goes back into the maintenance for the properties.

But even that doesn’t cover the cost of maintaining the tenancy.

Additionally, a national differential rent scheme is being considered, and it may set a standard.

She said those who are struggling can apply for hardship support in her department.

Ms Carr told the council that there have been 90 hardship cases since the beginning of 2022.

Of those, 15 were carers and 14 cases of family income supplement.

The council manages over 6,100 tenancies.

So the scale of the problem is quite small and is being managed.

However, she said removing the payments would impact the quality of everyone’s services.

“We need to mind the whole picture,” said Ms Carr.

DEFERMENT

Councillors Seamus Hanafin and Marie Murphy raised the point that there was not enough information to go forward. They said they would like to know how many carers there are in council tenancies, not just those who apply for hardship support.

They proposed discussing it again at the next meeting in September to give the housing section a chance to collate the necessary data.

Cllr Murphy also wanted to know which councils do not take the payments in question into account.

However, Cllr Roger Kennedy said the matter at hand was a budgetary one and should be left until October or November to decide on.

He said otherwise, they may be opening a “major can of worms”.

Cllr David Dunne said he would support the decision made by those who brought the motion. However, he said he felt it had been discussed enough, and if other councils could do it, he couldn’t see why this one couldn’t.

“Where Tipperary leads, the country goes. Well, we are not leading on this, are we?” said Cllr Dunne.

CONCERNS

The councillors who brought forward the motion expressed concerns that if the motion was deferred, it may get lost in other matters.

Cllr Ryan asked that if it was to be left until the budget season that a plan also be developed.

She said she didn’t want the budget to be used to show why it couldn’t be done but rather how it could be achieved.

However, Cllr Morris was not in favour of a deferment. He accused the council of “muddying the waters” and said it was “immoral”.

He called for the motion to go ahead. Ms Carr said that budgetary changes were an executive function and would require a report to be compiled.

It was unclear at the end of the discussion whether the matter would be discussed at the next meeting, but a vote did not go ahead at this meeting.