Richard O'Donoghue (Limerick County, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for the presentation. I have listened to the speakers. I am living in County Limerick very near the Cork border and there is no affordable housing in the area. I am a father of four and recently I became a grandfather. We went into the property market to look for a house for my son, his partner and my grandchild. I have a very good knowledge of County Limerick. There were no suitable properties to rent. There was some rental accommodation that I would not put anyone into because it was in such a poor state, yet the rent being sought for those inhabitable properties was outrageous. The first question asked was whether the prospective tenant was on HAP. The HAP payment in Cork is higher than the HAP payment in Limerick. It was suggested that the family should move to Cork, but there are no properties. Recently, social housing has been developed in Kilmallock and Hospital but the council has reached the maximum of social housing that can be provided. There are 24 people for each of the houses that are being built at the moment. The list of people trying to get into good properties is endless.

We have many good landlords and a lot of very good tenants. We have a minority of bad landlords and a minority of bad tenants. What Covid has shown us is that all the funding is going into cities where there is accessibility to sewerage capacity to build social housing. The council wanted to build 25 units of housing in Hospital, but it only had capacity for 15. A private sewerage system had to be put into each of the remaining houses it wanted to build, in the hope that the sewerage system would be updated. Askeaton is waiting for a sewerage system for 30 years. Kilmallock recently got a sewerage system, so now it can expand. Croom is expanding and a lot of housing is due to be built. People cannot build in any of areas where they want to live in towns and villages or in the countryside because there is no infrastructure. That is a major problem for people like me who are from the country, and please God I always will be. People call us culchies. I am happy to be there.