Four times more unemployed than in 2006
THERE ARE almost four times more unemployed people in Limerick struggling desperately to pay mortgages on their homes than five years ago.
The number of private homes which are mortgaged and where the owner is out of work, has shot up from just 617 in 2006 to 2,083 in 2011.
The figures are recorded in the just released Census 2011 report “The Roof Over Our Heads”.
Unemployed persons’ advocate, Frank McDonnell. described the figures as “absolutely shocking”.
Mr McDonnell, an employment rights officer with the Limerick Resource Centre for the Unemployed, said there is a huge amount of worry among people about losing their homes.
“We advise people to resist repossession fiercely,” he said.
“You often see reports which state the repossession was uncontested. If you get as far as court and you are making an effort to pay, the judge will usually be quite sympathetic, so we would advise that people go and make their case for what they can afford to pay”.
The households in the city where a mortgage holder is out of work number 589. in comparison to 272 at the last census.
In the county, the number of jobless trying to meet the bills and keep their homes is 1,494, in comparison to 345 in 2006.
Mr McDonnell added that while some people who lose their jobs have the breathing space of having the mortgage insured, others fall into various traps.
“There is the possibility of going to a welfare officer to get the interest portion of the loan paid, but applicants have to prove that they could actually afford to pay that amount of a mortgage when they first took the loan out. Also, the community welfare officer will only pay the interest on the original mortgage. If people have remortgaged, for instance to build an extension, that’s not covered”.
Another common pitfall is with workers who see the writing on the wall and opt to take redundancy packages.
“Insurance will only pay out if the redundancy is involuntary. There are all these things that people find out too late. What we advise them to do is to resist repossession and we refer them on to the Citizen’s Information Service, where they will get solid legal advice,” concluded Mr McDonnell.
