Council criticised for pre-Christmas rent increase letters

Westmeath County Council has been criticised for sending out letters just before Christmas to notify some local authority tenants that their rents would be increasing.

Council cathaoirleach Cllr Ken Glynn said this week that he wanted to express his disappointment with the timing of the rent review letters that had been sent to tenants.

"I think it was the wrong thing to do, given the times that we're in. It wasn't in the right spirit," he said. "I know we have to do our business, we have to do our job, but why not do it earlier, rather than just before Christmas?"

The issue was raised at Monday's meeting of the council's Housing, Community, Corporate and Culture strategic policy committee, where Cllr Vinny McCormack said he had also been contacted by "a number of tenants" about the timing of the rent reviews.

Responding to the councillors, director of services for housing, Mark Keaveney, accepted that the timing of the letters had been less than ideal.

"The rents are due to change in early February, and the timing of the letters going out was in anticipation of that. I accept that just before Christmas was probably not ideal, and maybe we can look at that next year," he said.

Cllr Frankie Keena said Athlone was "a rent freeze zone" and asked if that impacted on the changes to rents paid by council tenants.

Mr Keaveney replied that a "rent freeze" didn't apply to council housing. He said the differential rent scheme used by the local authority was completely separate from the private rental sector, in that council tenants' rents were based on the income and composition of each household.

Further information on how council rents were calculated was sought by Cllr Vinny McCormack, who said tenants had been contacting him with queries about their rent reviews.

"A lot of (councillors) are a little bit in the dark at the moment, in terms of what's a justifiable increase and what might not be," he said.