News
Support the INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS (PROVISIONS IN RESPECT OF PENSION ENTITLEMENTS OF RETIRED WORKERS) BILL 2021
The Collective Network of Retired Workers under the aegis of the Irish Senior Citizens Parliament are holding a support rally outside the DAIL, tomorrow Wednesday 19th @ 12.30pm. There will be short Press Conference in advance of this, in Buswells Hotel on @ 11.00am.
The representatives of the Irish Senior Citizens Parliament and the Collective Network who together represent 500,000 pensioners will then meet with Minister Neale Richmond to outline concerns and address the inaccuracies cited in his response to this Bill.
The rally and Press Conference aim to highlight the delays and lack of progress in relation to the INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS (PROVISIONS IN RESPECT OF PENSION ENTITLEMENTS OF RETIRED WORKERS) BILL 2021.
The Bill supports the rights of retired workers to have a say in any negotiations that will impact their pension provision. To date retired workers have been left out of this process and this has resulted in pension poverty for many retired workers as there has been a cumulative effect over the years.
Retired workers believe that it is the Government plan to let them ‘age out’ as this battle has been going on now for over 15 years. Many of the members who started this campaign have sadly passed away without seeing any change to the lack of equality for retired workers.
The Bill proposed by Brid Smith is the first serious attempt to address this inequality.
Tenant-in-Situ Scheme or is it a Dream?
A major promise from the Government’s counter-motion when lifting the Eviction Ban, was to invest in and allow for the expansion of the Tenant-in-Situ Scheme.
The tenant-in-situ scheme encourages local authorities to purchase properties that landlords are planning to sell, where there is an existing tenant in receipt of the Housing Assistance Payment (HAP) or the Rental Accommodation Scheme (RAS). In March, the Government increased the number of social housing acquisitions from 200 to 1500 for this year alone. The additional 1,300 acquisitions were said to be focused on the purchase of properties where a HAP or RAS tenant have received a notice of termination.
Multiple County and City Councils offer this kind of assistance to tenants who have received notice of termination as seen on their websites. However, figures show that there has been very little uptake of this scheme so far. According to the Irish Times, only 13 houses out of the 400 that were offered to the Dublin councils were purchased last year. Dublin City Council has since claimed to have purchased 25 with a further number of houses closing sale soon.
At a Joint Committee Hearing on Housing, Local Government and Heritage on 21st March, questions were raised over the reasons for the low number of purchases to date. Coilín O’Reilly from the County and City Management Association (CCMA) said it takes an average of four months for local authorities to acquire a property under the scheme. We have received multiple calls from older adults who have been given their notice of termination and have received confusing or incorrect information from their local authority about the scheme.
One older person has been trying to access any kind of assistance since first receiving the notice of termination last year. Over this period of time, the person in question has been either misinformed or redirected to other authorities or organisations multiple times. One local authority even claimed that they had never heard of the Tenant-in-Situ scheme and there seems to be a severe lack of information around the scheme in general. With so many people at risk of becoming homeless in the very near future, we ask the Government to please advise all local authorities and their staff of all of the supports available and to make the information more readily available to the public.
Please contact either your local authority, TD, councilor, Threshold, Alone or Focus Ireland if you are at risk of becoming homeless. We would also advise that you check the particulars of your notice of termination to ensure your landlord as adhered to the law. You can follow the guidelines on what to look out for here.
National Action Plan Against Racism 2023
According to iReport.ie, there were 600 reports received from the public about racism in 2022. This included 223 reports about criminal offences, 190 reports about discrimination, and 42 reports of other recordable racist incidents. There were also 136 further reports about racist hate speech. Considering the multitude of incidents that are never reported, the ISCP welcome the successful implementation of the National Action Plan Against Racism (NAPAR).
The five key priorities of the action plan are outlined below;
- Being Safe and Being Heard – supporting people who experience racism by protecting them from racist incidents and crimes
- Being Equal – addressing ethnic inequalities in education, employment, housing, health etc.
- Being Seen and Taking Part – facilitating and promoting minority participation in communities, media, politics and any other areas that are under-represented
- Being Counted – measuring the impacts of racism by gathering data to build a better understanding and to establish causes of racism
- Being Together – combating racism through policies, programmes and legislation while building public understanding of everyone’s role in fostering racial equality
The Government has already developed an implementation plan for the first year and will be monitored by an independent Special Rapporteur on Racial Equality and Racism. A Co-ordination Committee will be appointed to co-ordinate activity under the plan and gather the data necessary for monitoring the implementation of the actions. The Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth will Chair the Committee, which will comprise of local authorities and representatives of government departments responsible for actions under the plan.
The plan acknowledges the intersectionality between racism and multiple forms of oppression but unfortunately does not specifically mention the intersectionality with ageism. The report does reference the specific need for the participation of affected groups during the development, implementation and monitoring of government policy which is one of our consistent, main objectives. We sincerely hope that older members of ethnic minority groups will not be disproportionately affected and will also be considered during the implementation of NAPAR.
If you or someone you know has been affected, you can report any racist incident HERE
You can read the full Action Plan HERE
You can read the NAPAR short summary HERE
Danger: Evictions Ahead!
An agreement between the coalition and the Regional Independent Group (RIG), has secured enough support to end the eviction ban. The Sinn Fein motion to extend the moratorium was supported by parties such as People Before Profit, Aontú, Labour and various Independents.
The Regional Independent Group, established in 2020 which consists of 9 Independent TD’s, insisted on 8 amendments along with their full implementation in order to fully support the Government’s counter motion. The coalition has agreed to 5 of these amendments which is what possibly swayed the final vote. The conclusion was 83 Votes to 68 in favour of the coalition, meaning the eviction ban will be lifted on the 31st March. As a consequence of losing the vote yesterday, the Labour Party plan to hold a vote of no confidence in the Government on March 29th.
So, what does this mean for people as the end of the month approaches? Here are some of the amendments from the RIG that were agreed upon by the Government;
- Phasing out the ban: The Government intend to implement a scheme for local authorities or housing bodies to enable them to purchase a tenant’s home and rent it back to them. In addition, tenants may have first refusal to buy the property they are currently renting, if the landlord makes the decision to the sell. However, there is still no concrete timeline for implementing this scheme.
- The Fair Deal Scheme: Nursing home residents will soon be able to keep 100% of their income from renting out their family home while living in care. Currently, nursing home residents are required to allocate 40% of their rental income towards their cost of care.
- The Rent-A-Room Scheme: This relief scheme will now be extended to people receiving social welfare payments as well as local authority tenants. This will ensure that these tenants will still be eligible for supplementary benefits such as medical cards.
- The Croí Cónaithe Scheme: First -time buyers and other owner-occupiers, willing to refurbish derelict and vacant homes, have been eligible for grants on properties that were built before 1993. This will now be extended to include properties built before 2007 and the Government also plan to increase the rates.
- Tax Concessions for Landlords and Renters: The Government plan to review tax breaks, particularly for small landlords, to help retain their position in the housing market. The current rent tax credit (valued at up to €500 per renter per year) may also be increased and a significant Budget 2024 package for renters and landlords will be granted.
We will be paying close attention to the implementation of these plans but are concerned that the number of homeless people and families will see a dramatic rise after March 31st. If you or someone you know will be affected by the lifting of the eviction ban, you may be able to get some advice from Citizens Information or Threshold. We would also encourage you to write to your local TD where possible.