Public authorities looking after private houses, is not only a bigger waste of tax money, but also unfeasible. The system was being abused, tenants didn’t care, properties were being destroyed and landlords were using deposits to cover damage and unpaid rent.

The money should have gone from state to landlord, and landlord to state, completely bypassing tenants. And if the tenants ruined the property or didn’t pay rent or neglected their letting agreements, the landlords were right to keep deposits and the state should have claimed it back from tenants and prevented them from claiming and more benefits. This would meant the €32million would not be missing and would could use it for further social improvements.

These tenants/people who abused the system should be held criminally liable, it’s benefit fraud and they are essentially stealing from the state.

It sickens me to see so many properties empty in the city.

”Call for inquiry after €32m in state rental deposits goes missing”??

32 Million Euros??

Did you try using a sophisticated strategy to recover this?
Like asking the tenants to give the money back?

Try not paying your mortgage for a week
and a corrupt bank (that you now partly own) will be hunting you down like a criminal with the full support of your government.

I’ve been lucky enough to receive rent allowance when I was made redundant last year and it was explained to me in no uncertain terms I would not be getting a deposit which I thought was fair enough, it seems this policy is maybe only applied to some. This policy should count right across the board as it would make people value the deposit and property more. Or, if claimants need a deposit, give it to them, but garnish their payments until it is paid back, make it a loan. This kind of press is a poor reflection on people who are in receipt of the allowance and who are decent respectful law abiding people who are unlucky enough not to have a job and who do not trash the premises.

I totally agree with you Ann…people like yourself who worked and payed their taxes, prsi etc should be entitled to and receive a deposit without hassle. It is people who never worked or made a contribution to society who think they should be entitled that should not receive it….give a sob story to the welfare officer and there you go.
I see 18 years old getting rent allowance just cos they “don’t get on with my ma”.
While people who have worked can’t get it as easy

Hello siobeli, as someone who works in the social work sector you should already know that people who are granted a deposit through their welfare officer have never actually been expected to or ever asked to give it back.
It is a once off payment granted to people in exceptional circumstances and is by no means easy to acquire. Obviously you must work in an extremely generous office if you are giving people 2 or more deposits a year, as from what I understand, it is only supposed to be granted once and only in exceptional circumstances.

@luna tic. As I said in the last 2 years it’s been difficult to get a deposit, the only cases I have known since than are young people coming out of care and women coming from women’s refugees ,and rightly so. I don’t work in social welfare. I work in the community.
in previous years, 3 to 4 years ago, I worked with people who received it more than once in a year. It was a given that you got your deposit, on top of money towards bed cloths, saucepans etc if it was your 1st time moving.
Plus it has always differed from each community welfare officer. Some were more generous then others, but again this has all changed in the last 2 years.

@luna tic. As I said in the last 2 years it’s been difficult to get a deposit, the only cases I have known since than are young people coming out of care and women coming from women’s refugees ,and rightly so. I don’t work in social welfare. I work in the community.
in previous years, 3 to 4 years ago, I worked with people who received it more than once in a year. It was a given that you got your deposit, on top of money towards bed cloths, saucepans etc if it was your 1st time moving.
Plus it has always differed from each community welfare officer. Some were more generous then others, but again this has all changed in the last 2 years.

Personally I have never heard of anyone receiving it more then once. I received it myself a number of years ago, under unfortunate circumstances, I had become homeless for a time and was unable provide a deposit to begin renting again. As I recall it was quite difficult for me to provide all the relevant information and documents at the time especially because I had to keep the property on hold until it was decided whether or not I would be eligible or not. Thankfully I was, and sincerely grateful to the system and the people of this country for allowing me to get back on my feet. But I would hardly have said it was a given, and there was never any mention of money towards bed cloths, saucepans etc.
The point I’m trying to make is that I was informed that it was a once off payment and that I was to use the money to pay for any subsequent deposit again if I were to move. From what I understood I would not be entitled to receive any further help from them in the future regarding a deposit to rent. There was never any suggestion that I would have to pay it back.
The money isn’t missing as far as I can tell, it is a problem of the department being unclear about the conditions of such a payment. I would like to have some clarification on the actual terms of the payment.

sorry for repeating your comment siobeli.

Too expensive to administer…

An easier solution would be where the landlord should be made to pay the tenant 2-3 times the deposit if found to be unfairly holding it… Then they would hand it back without hesitation unless they knew they could prove the tenant damaged the property etc.

Oh, and should any doubt my bona fides on this matter, take a butcher’s at the forum over on irishlandlord.com – one memorable post includes a latter day Rachman brazenly bragging about how he’d never returned a full deposit in his life.

My point is that you’ve usually got to fight to get it back anyway and you’re much more inclined to do that when it’s your own cash at stake.

The PRTB are nothing more than a joke. I had a property so badly damaged it had to be completely stripped of every item in , incl carpets, furniture, heaters, built in kitchen appliances and then the entire home redecorated and furnished before I could relet. The PRTB found in my favour to the tune of just €6,000 despite it costing over €30,000 to put right. Three years later I’m still waiting for the money………. Like every other quango in this country it’s all mouth but no substance

Hmm. What you’re talking about there is clearly criminal damage/vandalism. I would think that’s outside it’s remit but there should certainly be a mechanism to prosecute that level of destruction with money deducted from wages/benefits until compensation has been made if not actual jail time.

Why would the government do that when half the TDs and senators (and almost all of Fianna Fail) are private landlords themselves?

How much experience have you exactly and what kind?

I worked for a rental agency.. The state the houses would be left in after rent allowance was diabolical. Very easy to see it wasn’t their own money put down as a deposit. Personally with my own properties there isn’t a hope in hell I’d take rent allowance.

Not all, but alot of people receiving rent allowance (free rent allowance, actually) dont have the same respect for a property than those who have to pay for it themselves would have. Its kind of a case of “easy come, easy go”

is it not the rental agencies job to do background checks? how many rentals are returned as they were rented and how many were not?

I wonder do landlords who refuse rent supplement as a matter of course realise that they are discriminating against disabled people?

People in receipt of disability allowance also receive rent supplement, and as I already explained to you on another article Lauren, those people on disability allowance (not benefit) are actually disabled. Not all disabled people have visible disabilities either..

Perhaps landlords and agencies should actually meet people (and learn a little bit about the idiocy of sweeping generalisations) before telling them no.

I have rented a few years now and have had two landlords keep my deposit for no reason other than they wanted to, they made terrible excuses to why they were keeping it, all rent was paid in full for the term of the contract and I lived alone so there was no damage or neglect. I simply did not have the money to take legal action. I know first hand that the landlords are not blameless and they abuse the system just as much as tennants do.

What also sickens me is the people who seem to get the deposits covered are people who make no contribution to society financial or otherwise and have not done for years, I would love to know how much of that 32m that is missing is down to these people.