Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 29 May 2019

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government

Update on Rebuilding Ireland - Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness: Discussion

Photo of Richard Boyd BarrettRichard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I said earlier I would give credit where it is due so I am more than capable of doing so. When it comes to dealing with the wider housing and homelessness emergency, however, I am truly in despair at the failure of the Minister's policies in my area. The failure of those policies presents an appalling vista. Next year, Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council will, at best, deliver six new council houses. The Minister said all of this takes time and things cannot be done overnight but claimed the situation would improve and as we get nearer to the end line of Rebuilding Ireland, the output of directly provided council housing would ramp up relative to the reliance on the private sector. That is not happening in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown where things are moving in the other direction. The council will provide six new council houses next year. How can the Minister possibly claim that is a serious attempt to address the housing crisis in Dún Laoghaire? It is shocking that there will be just six new social houses provided. While some units may be provided by approved housing bodies and under Part V, the council's housing output next year will amount to six units. That is significantly lower than the number provided this year, which was pathetic compared with demand. The Minister should not say that it is the council's fault or that the Government is doing its best to put pressure on local authorities because Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council is a Fine Gael-Fianna Fáil council.

I did not hear the Minister's response to the question on the reliance on the housing assistance payment as I had to pop out for a minute. Some 70% of people in receipt of the HAP in Dún Laoghaire are making top-up payments compared with a national figure of 50%. It is absolutely shocking that people are paying hundreds of euro over and above what they are supposed to pay. Does that not prove that the HAP is not equivalent to directly provided council or social housing? The Minister has always claimed the two approaches are simply different ways of delivering the same thing. If 70% of the people in the HAP scheme have to make top-up payments, they are clearly completely different. People on the HAP scheme are prey to private landlords and the extortionate rents they are charging. Moreover, the local authorities are now facilitating this extortion by approving situations where these massive top-up payments have to be paid. In some cases, the council has even suggested that people use their child benefit to make up the difference. People are now using child benefit to make up the difference between their rent and the housing assistance payment, which is directly leading to impoverishment and money being taken away from children.

On another matter, one which we knew was in the pipeline but is now an accomplished fact, as I discovered last night, DLR Properties Limited, a corporate subsidiary of Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council, yesterday completed the handover of part of the Cherrywood development known as TC3 to Johnny Ronan, a private developer. How can the Minister excuse that sale?

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