Media: 'Professionals only' - Daft.ie ordered to block discriminatory terms in ads

terrydel wrote: »

Say they said they don't want Muslims, Nigerians etc, would that be ok with you?

The landlord should be able to choose who he wants looking after his large investment

terrydel wrote: »

Say they said they don't want Muslims, Nigerians etc, would that be ok with you?

rightmove wrote: »

Ppl make sense of the world when the PC brigade force nonsense. LL will choose who they want and hope to make the correct decision, a decision the government are making harder and harder

terrydel wrote: »

So you are ok with discrimination on the grounds of race, creed, skin colour, religion etc. Thanks for clearing that up. Nothing to do with any pc brigade. Bigotry plain and simple.

Man that's some leap...you should try out for the Olympics.

They didn't bite when you asked your leading question, yet you still went and labelled them a bigot. Very few are OK with racism and even less willing to admit it even in anonymity on a forum, so not the cleverest way to have asked.

What LL's have a problem with is not being able to chose the best tenant for their property without running the risk of being hauled to the WRC for discrimination.

Try it sometime, spend 20 minutes on the phone with someone you showed the house to but rejected. They trying to goad you in to saying you didn't give them the house because of discrimination.

Not because when I googled their name up came several court appearances/ jail sentences, one in reference to a riot in Mullingar where properties were thrashed (made the 9 o'clock and still on youtube). The wife the same for shop lifting.

That conversation ended with my family and I being threatened and a promise that the house would be burnt to the ground.

Are you going to label me a bigot because I didn't give them the house. The way the government is heading, soon LL's might have no choice.

@Nox Don't get hauled into a you're a "racist" "xenophobic" side tracking arguments. Its a sideshow, nothing more.


Private landlords should have the right to enter into private agreements with whomever they wish. It is after all, their property, not the governments.

That private home owners state possible suitability requirements is to ensure they get reliable tenants, who have the ability to pay the demanded rent without any damage being done to their private property. These are not discriminatory requirements.

Portsalon wrote: »

I'd really like to see the landlords taking a class action against the State for its every-increasing dilution/abuse of the constitutional right to private property.

(Although I concede that this is easy for me to write, as a non legally qualified, non property owning sideline observer.)

The IPOA gave a presentation to an Oireachtas Commitee back in February. It was disjointed, and shockingly all over the place if I remember correctly.

Certainly some of the policies and responsibilities that this government have abdicated onto private landlords could well be proven to be anti competitive. It would require an organised representative organisation to do challenge it though.

The government have been very good at rolling out so many ridiculous responsibilities on private owners to cover up their own lack of engagement or planning for social housing and affordable housing areas. They have played the greedy landlords card very well to cover up their own incompetence. Meanwhile social housing responsibilities have passed to private owners. This needs to change.

What about posting something like the below in your advertisement?

The following items will have no influence on an application, all applications are treated equally:
- professional position
- bank statement - 12 months
- employment reference
- previous LL reference
- anything else that a LL would like to not include in their decisions process that if provided will clearly not have any influence on your application.

If your property is in an RPZ with the rent capped, your tenant selection criteria will automatically become risk averse. The ability to pay, the reliability of payment, the lowest risk of damage or antisocial behaviour. Anybody who expects different is quite simply deluded.

When you have a landlord who takes on new tenants once every few years, nobody will never be able to show bias on their part at any statistical level. The 'protected status applicant' was third on the shotlist of 20 applicants, but there was only one property available. Its simply not possible to enforce equality measures where all but one applicant is being rejected.

Having general rules about discrimination are good from the point of view of avoiding specific instances of a person being told I'm not letting my property to an [insert derogatory term for ethnic/racial/social grouping] but I'm not sure it does a whole lot to help them find accommodation. Pushing it to a point where an add is censored for mentioning references seems to be a waste of effort which could be expended on positive measures somewhere else.

However, for the new large scale landlords, you absolutely can show bias and even apply quotas. If its ok to mandate a % of new build to sell developments be social housing, then applying a similar rule to build to let or even landlord with a certain number properties is hardly a big stretch. Perhaps this is a motivating factor in the apparent determination to move more and more of the rental stock from individual landlords with a handful of properties to large scale REITs.

Theres no law that says landlords have to take on hap tenants or students,
this is political correctness .in modern ireland ,you cannot even imply
that every one is not equal ,
So ads cannot say we are looking for working professionals .
That could exclude students or maybe someone working 3 days a week.
We are supposed to pretend that we live in a perfect society .
i can understand why a landlord renting a large flat in rathmines for 150 euro a week.
May not want to rent to a student, sign the forms to get hap.
When they will get 10 potential tenants who work at google or the local bank who will rent the flat .
There are landlords who take hap clients ,they are mainly ones who will
rent a house out to a single mother with 2 or more children , in my experience .
why should they waste time interviewing students for the sake of political correctness .
if i was working at the tax office i would give all landlords who live in citys a 20 per cent tax credit for taking a hap tenant,
there is no financial incentive for a landlord to take a student as a tenant at the moment , as opposed to someone who works in an office.

Portsalon wrote: »

Surely by saying "replies by email only" you're discriminating against the non-computer literate?

I'll be amazed if the wonderful Emily Logan and her team of brainwashed IHREC muppets don't pick up on that shocking evidence of discrimination very shortly!

If you don't provide a phone number they have to email. I use a throwaway email so I'm not harassed once the room is gone. It's also much easier to email "Thank you for your interest. There was a huge response to the ad and I am sorry to say you have not been successful in your application. Wishing you every success in securing accommodation in the near future". Send then block the email address so no further correspondence, no reason why they didn't get it, just that they didn't now move on.

Portsalon wrote: »

Surely by saying "replies by email only" you're discriminating against the non-computer literate?

I'll be amazed if the wonderful Emily Logan and her team of brainwashed IHREC muppets don't pick up on that shocking evidence of discrimination very shortly!

Would say they'd go down the ageist route there, if they had a problem with it. Considering how often you've people complaining about services moving to paperless online oly and the like and how it effects the elderly I doubt it's far fetched they'd have an issue.