Homes with just one wage coming in are really struggling to make ends meet, a Sinn Fein councillor told Meath County Council. Fionnan Blake said things were even more difficult if the worker had a child at secondary school. He had told a previous meeting about a single woman who had a child in transition year and who was working overtime in order to pay for extra activities for the child. The money wasn’t being frittered away on foreign holidays, he said, but the mother found that that extra overtime mother was used in an assessment to raise her rent.
There was a disincentive to work. This woman was a good example to her daughter, working every day and working overtime. “She told me that at one stage she was thinking of giving up work altogether because she would be better off not working”, Cllr Blake said. He knew that there was a “hardship form” available but this kind of form was degrading for workers who were trying to put food on the table. In many places the transport system people used to get to work was “not fit for purpose”.
There needed to be more support for working people. As the county council built more affordable and social housing over the next few years he would like to see rents coming down. The rents being paid in Dublin city were lower than what people were being asked to pay in Co Meath. He called for a “robust” review of the rent scheme. The council agreed with his call.
