Kilkenny County Council to review income threshold of those who can apply for housing supports

More Kilkenny locals are set to become eligible for a spot on the county council’s housing list.

The local authority this week agreed to review the income threshold of those who can apply for housing supports.

Cllr Tomás Breathnach received unanimous support for the motion at Wednesday’s meeting of elected members.

He says the current system is unfair for those claiming social welfare payments telling KCLR News “We can have a situation where if somebody is awarded a working family payment which recognises a deficit in their income into the household yet at the same time it might bring them over the threshold for housing supports I don’t think that was the intention of the department and I’m asking them to look at that again and, as I say, to review the whole process in terms of the base rate, the adjustments and the social welfare payments, the three elements of it”.

Cllr Breathnach adds “For a single person the income threshold is €30,000 and my own view is that that figure is at present it’s too low, the second thing is that there are add-ons or adjustments for children and for adults, for instance for an adult it’s 5% of that 30,000 which is 1,500 for every adult which means therefore that for instance if you had two people the 30,000 becomes 31,500 which I still think is too low”.