Longford tenants under pressure due to soaring €2.2 million rent arrears
Fianna Fáil's Kevin Hussey, brought a motion to the June local authority meeting where he said the Longford assessment rate of 22.5 per cent with no maximum cap is 'unfair'.
A local councillor has said an increasing number of tenants in Longford are struggling and having to work second jobs due to the Differential Rent Scheme system in the county, which is one of the highest in the country.
Fianna Fáil's Kevin Hussey, brought a motion to last week's meeting of Longford County Council and it was seconded by his party colleague Cllr Martin Monaghan.
Cllr Hussey said the Longford assessment rate of 22.5 per cent with no maximum cap is 'unfair' and it is one of the highest in the country.
He stated there should be huge concern over the soaring rental arrears of €2.2 million, a significant jump since 2022 when it stood at €851,000 and in 2021 when the figure was €925,000.
The Differential Rent Scheme system is used by local authorities to calculate social housing rent based on household income.
Cllr Hussey said an increasing number of tenants are contacting him about the current Differential Rent Scheme and his ‘biggest issue’ many tenants on the current rent scheme feel they are getting ‘punished for working’.
"Nobody should be worse off because they got a pay-rise, nobody should be worse off because they've worked overtime, nobody should be worse off because they took a second job and nobody should be worse off because they received a one off bonus.
Yet this is exactly how many tenants feel,” he added.
Cllr Hussey said he knows one person who received a €700 bonus from April 2025 to April 2026 and who quite rightly declared all of his money in his rent review but as a result it jumped by €14.50 per week.
"By the end of the year the value of that €700 bonus was effectively wiped out and in my opinion that's not right."
Cllr Hussey said he also knows a family who have lived in their house for 17 years and they are paying more than €300 per week on rent and feel stuck.
"They would love to do the tenant purchase scheme but they cannot save the money for the deposit because they are giving too much out on rent."
Cllr Monaghan, who said he fully supported him, stated they regularly receive phone calls from concerned local people and they needed to sit down and assess the rents and the rent review systems.
"Nobody expects to live for nothing, but the fact that for every €5 that is given €1.25 of it comes back into us [is a lot].
"We have more than doubled our arrears in rent at the minute and that is a stark figure that we have to really look at and see where the bottom line is causing the problems."
Director of Services Samantha Healy said the Differential Rent Scheme was adopted in November 2023 and rents and it calculates accessible household income to reflect a household's ability to pay.
"This provides an income-based rent model that has both affordability for tenants and operational sustainability for Longford County Council."
Ms Healy said there are variations, but Longford's position is at the upper end in terms of assessment rate and without a cap rent.
Ms Healy said they will refer the matter back to the Social Development SPC but there are a few points she wanted to make.
"With regard to the rent arrears, I think we just need to take in context that a lot of those arrears stem from the rent review that we would have done in 2024 and that was the first rent review that we had done in a long time.
"And so rents did significantly go up for those people who had year-on-year income increases since the last rent review."
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