This will be one of the most interesting parts of the budget for Pinsters, as the Landlord’s Dole has a huge effect on rents.
I’ll guess a cut of between 10% and 20%.
Here are the present rates:
Rent Supplement should be halved. Why are scarce resources being used to enrichen landlords and speculators at the expense of the working poor? Cut the supplement and allow the market find it’s level.
A mate of mine rents out his gaff to someone on the supplement. He got a call from the tenant last week, the supplement is being cut from 860 to 750 per month. The department told the tenant to get the equivalent amount knocked off the rent, and if they didn’t manage that then the dept would find them another gaff.
Strange it happened before the budget.
The rent supplement paid should reflect market rents, market rents are distorted by the rent supplement. Chicken and egg.
12% cut? It’s a start I suppose…
Rent supplement is currently in excess of the market rent.
It is artificially propping them up.
It needs to be cut by a minimum of 25%.
Wow. I’d always wondered why the state couldn’t just cut the supplement and tell landlords to suck it up. Well, it appears that’s exactly what they are doing!
I’d cut it by more, but if it’s this 12% this year and the same next, that will have a massive, massive effect on rents across the board. Suddenly, bedsits would cost 12% less and every property above it on the ladder would have to drop the same to fill the vacuum. If this happens in tandem with the natural downward spiral of rents (as is happening now) it’s a double whammy and I can’t see the floor.
Most importantly, this will help restore the natural justice whereby the working poor no longer have the indignity of competing for rental properties with people on welfare. There should be clear blue water between a property ANY worker can afford and the property a welfare recipient can. At the moment, no such gap exists at the bottom of the market.
But there IS clear blue water between them! I’m self employed paying 750/month with 2 kids. If I was unemployed I’d have 1110/month rent supplement. 
From the rates on the table, One would get premium accommodation for the allowances given for Limerick City. so I have to pay over the odds for basic accommodation on a meager salary. Hope they cut the shit out of the allowance.
I know of 2 lone parent families with 2 kids in in 2 separate 4 bed detached houses next door to each other.
Have heard of stories from UK where 2 lone parent families shared accommodation and helped each other out with babysitting etc. I believe they set up a website to allow others to meet and do the same
Cutting the rent supplement hurts the landlords ability to pay their mortgages to the banks that the government guarantee.
Almost the definition of a vicious circle.
They need to be very careful about doing this, at least do it slowly so the banks are not flooded with defaulting landlords, at least not until after September 2010.
Any landlord/speculator dependent on rent supplement to pay the mortgage is finished, regardless. Will rent supplement go up when the interest rates do? I doubt it.
The bastards.
The guarantee has been extended to 2013 whizzbang.
Yikes! I missed that somehow! Looks like it was part of the NAMA legislation.
Interesting that is it until after the next election. The must have expected it to be bad news when it happens.
Whoa. 2 parent family with 2 kids gets €1100? That is insane in the current market. I pay €1100 for a small 3 bed house in a really nice area (single average income working family with 2 kids). If a family on welfare had got there first the landlord could have charged more at the expense of, well, me the taxpayer. How f*****d is that?
Please tell me you a joking.
Someone I know has had a house rented (kept her own gaff after getting married) for 10 years now - greater Dublin area. Had to drop the rent 25% this year, and had nothing but welfare tenants apply for it (quite a few of them). She now gets exactly 1,100 as that is the welfare rate so it definitely puts a floor down. It’s a nice gaff for a family so to me it seems surprising that 2 people on the dole get it for free from the state. I’d say some of the neighbours’ mortages (the ones who bought second hand) are more than twice the rent (out of after tax income) so they must be none too pleased.
Nothing on this or did I miss it?
Yes, what the hell? Did I miss it too?
This is insane if they didn’t cut it.
It’s probably an administrative measure rather than a budget measure? (i.e. it doesn’t need a money bill for it to happen).