Rental property and religious distinction

RENTAL property is becoming synonymous with religious diversity.

More than 67% of Orthodox Christians living in Ireland are in some form of rented accommodation.

In local authority housing one in every eight occupants are non-Catholic.

Similarly, a third of all people renting from private landlords are not Catholic, compared with 7% of people who live in their own home.

Meanwhile, half of all Presbyterian and Church of Ireland believers who have their own house have cleared their debts with the banks.

Among Catholics 29% of the entire congregation had bought their own home and paid off their mortgage.

This is against a backdrop where half of all non-Catholics living here class themselves as non-Irish, according to the census.

Yesterday, the national housing organisation Threshold said although many of today’s tenants were born abroad, it did not lead to them being treated differently from Irish occupants.

Threshold director Bob Jordan said while some people had bad experiences when they first arrived, this had a lot to do with a lack of knowledge of the system.

“One of the things we do know is the mistakes people make can be avoided if they know the pitfalls like not handing over deposits to landlords unless they have more details than a mobile number.

“Because there is such competition for rooms people very often take the first one they get and we have heard of people handing over money on the street without there being any property to back it up. This can put some people in a vulnerable position.

“But generally the problems happen regardless of where somebody comes from and the most complaints we have got is from people not getting their deposit back,” he said.

Threshold has translated its advice leaflets for tenants into 12 languages to cater for the increasingly diverse environment.

Separately, 48% of people without any religion are in some form of rented accommodation.