ALERT: High number of notices to quit being served on north Tipperary tenants

A high number of notices to quit are being served on tenants throughout North Tipperary.

Tipperary County Council is saying that in an effort to deal with “the increasing number of Notices to Quit being served on HAP (Housing Assistance Payment) tenants, the Council is introducing a new procedure to deal with this situation as early as possible and thereby reduce or avert the need to use emergency accommodation.”

The first step in this procedure will be the HAP tenant producing the Notice to Quit as soon as he receives it to the Council housing section.

An appointment will then be made with the tenant “for the next available/suitable appointment with the HAP Placefinder (HPF).”

The HPF will then undertake a housing support assessment and place finder assessment “to determine their current circumstances and outline what they need to do; what type of record they need to keep; & also advise the client of the supports he or she can avail of.”

If after some months the tenant has been unsuccessful in finding HAP accommodation then the tenant “will be encouraged to look for units outside of their area of choice.”

Cllr Seamus Morris has strongly criticised the Council's approach to this rising problem. “It did not need to come to this,” he said. “I have been warning about landlords leaving the market for over 18 months now and I was told that they were being adequately replaced. We recently had an emergency meeting about housing and none of this was discussed.”

The councillor said he will not agree with a system which refuses people housing out of their area of choice “as quite a lot of people have no access to transport to get their children into the schools that they are settled in.”

He said the Council's Choice Based Lettings system is not working as there are not enough houses on it for the amount of people looking for social housing.

He pointed out that he has long advocated the use of Modular housing “but for some reason Tipperary County Council looks down on Modular housing (unless you are a Ukrainian refugee of course). Laois County Council are starting a 54 unit modular housing scheme for their tenants and I feel we as a Council need to get down off our high horse and embrace modular housing. The tone of this response is somehow to blame the tenant when in reality the ideology of privatising social housing is the problem here.

“There of course have been many times when our valuable staff have been seconded to help out housing refugees be they Syrian or Ukrainian. Let's be clear - I welcome the refugees. But we should bring the same level of concern and focus to our own people. For example the working people who are just barely over the income limit for housing support and cannot afford a house or apartment of their own. These people are leaving the country by the thousands which may explain the reason that there is a workforce crisis in the country.”