Madam, - Watching Prime Time's report on substandard housing last Tuesday night reminded me that, while a looming economic recession in the US may be threatening our Celtic Tiger prosperity, the Celtic Tiger never arrived for some Irish citizens.
The programme showed Irish people forced to live in hazardous, cramped conditions in private rented accommodation while taxpayer subsidised greedy, inhumane landlords.
This kind of poverty, hidden behind closed doors, has to be tacked, firstly by making landlords accountable and secondly by increasing social housing instead relying naively on the corrupt, untrustworthy private sector to do the State's job. - Yours, etc,
NORAH MURPHY, The Coppice, Palmerstown, Dublin 20.
Madam, - I am writing in relation to Carl O'Brien's report headed "Housing poorer among rent supplement tenants" (The Irish Times, March 18th). Focus Ireland works with vulnerable people every day, some of whom are in receipt of rent allowance and forced to live in substandard accommodation to keep a roof over their heads and prevent them from becoming homeless.
The high incidence of very poor private accommodation rented out to thousands of families and individuals under the rent supplement scheme has been common knowledge in recent years. Some of these properties at the lowest end of the market fail to meet even the existing minimum standards in areas such as fire safety and heating.
Many other properties are totally unsuitable for families with children, yet people have no other option as the cap for rent allowance is fixed at a rate which makes only the lowest end of the market affordable.
Voluntary organisations such as Focus Ireland are working hard to provide suitable housing and permanent routes out of such living conditions. Focus Ireland provides homes for more than 500 households in Dublin, Limerick, Waterford, Sligo and Cork and works in partnership with local authorities and the Government to tackle these serious issues.
We welcome the confirmation from Minister of State Batt O'Keeffe that the Government is preparing new standards for rented accommodation which, he says, should be completed by mid-2008. We and others in the sector have campaigned for such measures for many years.
However, it is vital that, once suitable measures are agreed, they must be "fast-tracked" into law. And local authorities must be given the resources and political direction to ensure they are rigorously enforced.
In recent years local authority inspectors around the country found that more than 30 per cent of the properties they visited were sub-standard. Yet only a handful of prosecutions were taken. This shows the situation will not improve if some landlords know they can still get away Scot-free when renting out accommodation that is unsafe and damaging to people's health, both mental and physical.
Around 60,000 people receive of rent supplements which cost up to €400 million a year. The Government has a duty to ensure this money is spent providing good quality accommodation and not simply lining the pockets of unscrupulous landlords.
It must bring in the new regulations as soon as possible - and also ensure the provision of more social housing.
Other schemes need to be extended, such as the Rental Assistance Scheme whereby local authorities strike a deal with private landlords to provide good accommodation at local authority rents for people in receipt of rent allowance.
- Yours, etc,
ORLA BARRY, Director of Services, Focus Ireland, High Street, Dublin 8.