How property tax brought Clare resettlement initiative to its knees

A voluntary housing group will ask Clare County Council to take on 21 of its properties amid warnings that the imposition of the property tax will lead to “a domino effect” as other organisations will be forced to follow suit.

Rural Resettlement Ireland has helped 750 families to move to predominantly private rented accommodation in the west, south-west and midlands since it was set up in 1990, with many moving to Co Clare.

But the organisation will hold an emergency meeting tonight at which founder Jim Connolly has said he will quit his role and call for the “orderly transfer” of 21 properties into the care of the local authority.

“Nobody ever signed up to become tax collectors,” Mr Connolly said of his role as a voluntary director of a company limited by guarantee and thereby not allowed to make a profit.

He said it was now “virtually impossible” to persuade people to become voluntary directors and warned that there could be a “domino effect” among the voluntary housing sector because of the property tax and because those organisations will not be exempted from it.

He said that following tonight’s meeting Rural Resettlement Ireland (RRI) would “go out of business”.

He said the tenants in the RRI properties pay a social rent and the money was used to run the organisation and for the upkeep of properties. Mr Connolly said Clare County Council was already the co-signatory of an agreement with RRI in relation to the properties and following tonight’s meeting he will make a formal application that the local authority take on the houses.

He has already written to each county councillor asking that the matter be placed on the agenda at the local authority’s next meeting in March.

In the letter sent to councillors RRI said: “The Government has radically moved the goalposts. Neither I nor any other director over the years signed up to become tax collectors... The latest addition of shouldering the responsibility for paying property tax on large numbers of social houses is the last straw.”

Bernadette Kinsella, Clare County Council director of services, said RRI had raised the issue with her but stressed it was “not a given” the local authority could take on the properties.