asked the Minister for Local Government if he will accede to requests by some local authorities, including Tralee Urban District Council, to be allowed to discount overtime in assessing rents for their housing schemes.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Differential Rents.
117.
The basic principle underlying the differential renting system is to relate each tenant's rent to his ability to pay and to the standard of the accommodation he occupies.
The system enables families with low incomes to be given accommodation at rents they can afford but which are far below the cost of providing and maintaining their accommodation. The differential renting system can only be operated with the aid of a very large State and rate subsidy which last year amounted to more than £11 million while incomes from rents totalled about £7 million. The exclusion of overtime earnings would cut across the basic principle of relating rent to ability to pay and giving the highest subsidy to those most in need of it. It would also create anomalies between persons on fixed incomes and those whose earnings have a large overtime element in them, which would clearly be inequitable. If overtime were not taken into account when fixing rents, persons with higher incomes would gain substantially—in some cases by a rent reduction of up to 50 per cent —while other tenants on lower incomes would not only not benefit but would have to meet part of the cost of the concession through the payment of increased rates. I accept, however, that overtime could involve a tenant in some extra expense and for that reason proposals from local authorities to disregard a portion of overtime, generally not exceeding one-fifth, in assessing rent under a differential rent scheme have been approved.
May I congratulate the Parliamentary Secretary on his long reply to Deputy Lynch. I thought replies of such length were reserved for Members of the Opposition.
Sometimes.
More power to him.
I do not think he would take it that way.