With young people now moving out of the family home later in life, councils want them to contribute more to the rent, if they are earning.
The move has been criticised by some local representatives, who say parents have no control over their adult children’s income.
Figures from Eurostat suggest the average age of a young person moving out of their parents’ home in Ireland is almost 27 years old.
South Dublin County Council (SDCC) is the latest local authority with plans to change its social housing rents, and charge more for families with adult children who work.
For some social housing homes in SDCC, rent is already more than €135 above the national average. This review means it could go up even higher.
Local authorities are looking to collect more rent from ‘subsidiary earners’. Stock image
News in 90 Seconds. Tuesday, February 17
Currently, the council’s system involves 10pc of a household’s overall income and a flat fee of €3.
An additional 10pc is charged on any income from what are known as “subsidiary earners” – additional people in the household who earn over a certain salary range. It applies to those earning more than the council’s social housing income eligibility threshold, which ranges between €40,000 and €47,000 depending on the number of family members.
But the review by council management could mean an increase in the 10pc currently charged on families, or the rate applied to those earning an excess income.
It is part of a wider trend of councils collecting more cash from “subsidiary earners”, which are often adult children still living with their parents while also holding down jobs.
With SDCC being one of the only councils that does not apply a cap on how much it charges these earners, it could mean a big burden on larger families.
Independent councillor for Palmerstown-Fonthill Madeleine Johansson said: “Management didn’t tell us what exactly they are doing, but that’s the plan, they will increase that to more than 10pc – those families will end up paying more.”
Councillor Madeleine Johansson
Other local authorities have also been moving towards charging households with more earning members.
In April, changes in Dublin City Council’s scheme will see the its cap of €21 on subsidiary earners go up to €40.
It will also remove a limit on how many family members can be charged (capped at up to four).
Now any number of earning family members can be charged for their income, while the primary earner is charged 18pc (an increase from 15pc) of their weekly income.
In November, Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council decided to scrap a cap of €20.
Fingal County Council will increase its cap from €40 to €60 later this year, and the rate on net income will increase from 12pc to 14.5pc.
Galway City Council will introduce a model similar to SDCC this year that is moving away from individual charges and introducing a flat charge of 20pc on total income.
Waterford City and County Council also removed its cap, starting this month, charging a flat rate of 10pc.
In Mayo, subsidiary earners pay 10pc of their income, capped at €20 a week. In Cork city, they pay 15pc of their income capped at €23.
SDCC is the only Dublin council that looks at a household’s aggregate income without any cap on how individual earners are charged.
“In an instance where there might be two working adult children, rent is over €700 [€705 a month], while the national average is €570 – that’s around €135 more,” SDCC senior executive officer Michael Murtagh said at a recent housing meeting.
There is an increase of €7.86m in our projected expenditure this year
“Whereas, for a single working parent with one child, rent is €208, while the national average is €420. There, we have a gap of €223. So we will look at how to make this more equitable.
“We have reviewed our current housing rents, for 6pc of our tenancies, the total monthly rent is lower than €325.
“There is an increase of €7.86m in our projected expenditure this year, we have seen increasing average rent, buoyancy of household incomes and an increase in social welfare incomes.
“Our eligibility threshold is €40,000 for a single person to €47,000 for family units with three adults and three beds. Right now, 3,700 tenancies have a net household income over the threshold.”
A change to the scheme will impact 21,000 tenancies in south Dublin.
It will apply to tenancies supported by Approved Housing Bodies (AHB), those on the Rental Accommodation Scheme (RAS), the Housing Assistance Payment (HAP) and the council’s own tenants.
“An option we have to make this more equitable is to apply a cap on subsidiary earners who will pay more than the national average like other councils have,” Mr Murtagh said. “And in other cases, where rent is much lower than the national average, is scrapping the working family payment [a weekly payment for employees with children].”
But the proposed increase in SDCC is proving controversial among councillors and it is unclear whether there will be a cap on how much a family or individual ultimately has to pay.
They have called for more consultations with the public and the council before the policy moves forward.
“It doesn’t seem like we can vote – we are being told that we can tell them what we think but management will decide what they are doing. The amount itself will be part of the budget, and we can vote on that but we don’t get to vote on the decision itself,” Ms Johansson said.
“I reject the principle that maintenance and repair work has to be funded by rental income, it is a move away from social housing by the Government.
“It will be a double whammy to some families, we cannot move ahead with this without consulting the people.”
The council said a review will be necessary to cover its maintenance costs and repair work on its housing stock.
Labour councillor Joanna Tuffy
Labour councillor for Lucan Joanna Tuffy believes families with adult children “will be a lot worse off than other local authorities”.
“I have constituents like that at the moment, and one of the issues is when it comes to an adult child who is working, the parent has no control over their income and it’s not an easy issue,” she said.
“If it were a private house, it wouldn’t matter how much each child is earning – sometimes children move away and come back, it’s not easy to track, they might want to save so they can move out eventually and pay a deposit.”
Sinn Féin councillor for Clondalkin William Carey said a new charge could restrict adult children living in council homes.
“What will happen is that lower-level workers in a home who appear to be bringing in a large amount of money will be stuck at home because they can’t move anywhere else,” he said.
“This is more than 10pc on top of whatever contributions they have, on top of their living expenses. These aren’t necessarily high incomes, it could be people working at McDonald’s and other jobs who are living at home because they can’t afford to move out.”
Funded by the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme