Hiking cost of permits for houseboat owners 'would create homelessness'

A group representing people living on houseboats on Ireland’s rivers and waterways has said that raising the cost of annual permits for such residences will lead to homelessness. Picture: Sasko Lazarov/RollingNews.ie

A group representing people living on houseboats on Ireland’s rivers and waterways has said that raising the cost of annual permits for such residences will lead to homelessness.

Waterways Ireland, the body with responsibility for managing inland water routes, is proposing to update the more than 30-year-old bye laws in place for governing the country's navigable waterways.

Part of those proposed changes would see the price of a residential permit for those living on houseboats increase from its current level of €578 per year to up to €7,500 for urban houseboat residents such as those living on Grand Canal Dock in Dublin.

Addressing the Oireachtas Housing Committee on Tuesday Jerry Gleeson of the Irish Residential Boat Owners Association – a group set up in 2023 to represent residents’ concerns amid a public consultation on the bye-laws – said that for those who think that changing the costs of permits won’t create homelessness: “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Waterways Ireland does not know how many liveaboard boats there are on the canals and the (River) Barrow,” he said.

“It does not know how many people live on those boats, consequently it does not know how many of those people are families with young children, single parent families, senior citizens, disabled people or vulnerable people.”

Waterways Ireland claims the fact the bye-laws currently in place are outdated is “indisputable”.

A report detailing the results of the first public consultation regarding the proposed changes was published by Waterways Ireland earlier this month.

The body argued in that report that while an annual mooring fee of €7,500 for those living on Grand Canal Dock may appear to be “a large increase”, the effects would be mitigated by a stepped approach put in place over six years, seeing increasingly higher fees being charged in increments.

“Yearly permit price increases of €1,000, €2,000, or €4,000 increasing to €7,500 depending on location, would be difficult for any household in the state to absorb and for many, in our community, impossible,” Mr Gleeson told the committee on Tuesday.

He said he was “very proud” that a form of protest movement has arisen “organically” among houseboat communities which he said could “best be summed up as ‘if my neighbour can’t afford a permit how could I, in good conscience, buy one”.

He said that proposed changes to the laws which would see navigation restrictions put in place will lead to “dead zones” on the Royal and Grand Canals, while some leisure boats will no longer be able to purchase residential permits.

“Where will they go?” he asked.

A second public consultation regarding the proposed bye-law changes commenced on January 15, and will close on February 26.