Emergency meeting set over Wicklow council’s imminent rent hikes as protest is planned
The Wicklow PeopleAn emergency meeting of Wicklow County Council has been set, after hundreds of local authority tenants hit out when they received letters on rent increases that are due to come into effect within weeks.
The situation has prompted councillors across party lines to demand clarity, culminating in the confirmation of an emergency meeting of the full council on September 28.
Sinn Féin councillors Warren O’Toole and John Ward have been most outspoken on the issue, and said they have been inundated with calls from distressed tenants, with some reporting rises of 50pc to 100pc, despite no change in household income since the last review.
The rent increases stem from a long-running review of the council’s differential rent scheme, a process councillors were told began last autumn and has taken roughly a year to complete.
The council has defended the new scheme, saying it is the first rent review since 2019, and that some tenants can expect significant changes in rent due to household circumstances not being updated since the previous review.
Councillors say they were aware a review was underway, but were not prepared for the scale of the increases now emerging.
The Sinn Féin councillors formally requested a special sitting of the full council, a request supported by councillors across the county.
The county cathaoirleach, Cllr Caroline Winstanley, confirmed the meeting, raising particular concern for vulnerable tenants.
The Social Democrats councillor said she had been contacted by tenants “some of them pensioners or people with disabilities”, who were facing drastic increases.
She said the scale of the hikes had “taken myself and other councillors by surprise”, and stressed that “large rent hikes for vulnerable members of our community are not supported by us, and are simply not on”.
She noted that she and Family Carers Ireland had successfully lobbied the council to have Family Carers Allowance disregarded in income calculations, but even with that change, she said the increases being reported were deeply worrying.
Cllr Winstanley has asked tenants to contact her directly with details of their old rent, new rent and any change in circumstances, saying this information will help councillors present a clearer picture to the council’s chief executive.
A meeting with the cathaoirligh of the five Municipal Districts has been arranged this week, with Cllr Winstanley requesting a detailed analysis of the rent changes ahead of the emergency meeting.
Independent councillor Peir Leonard, who is chair of the Arklow district, has criticised the rent review process for failing to consider real household pressures such as debts, childcare costs, medical expenses and transport.
She said the short notice given to tenants had caused “shock, anxiety and enormous uncertainty”, and argued that the rent setting process, over which councillors have no vote or discretion, represented “another erosion of democracy led by government policy”.
Sinn Féin TD John Brady added that he and his party colleagues believe a full review of the scheme needs to take place before the proposed changes take effect on October 3.
His colleague in the Wicklow-Wexford constituency, Fionntán Ó Súilleabháin, said that he wants to see the €200 rent cap reinstated, and the increase in minimum rent reversed from €30 per week back to €24.
“Social housing must remain genuinely affordable,” he said. “Council tenants should not be asked to pay the price for policy failures while they are already struggling to make ends meet.”
A petition against the hikes has been launched online, already gathering more than 1,170 signatures, and a protest is planned at Wicklow County Council buildings on September 28.