Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I support Senator Moynihan on this. One thing that we discussed at the committee was significant ESRI housing research which was published in summer 2018. It asked a simple question, which is how many households not eligible for social housing support, including people who cannot get HAP, RAS or social housing, have high housing costs. It did extensive research, going right back to 2002. It looked at renters and owner-occupiers. The findings of the survey were startling. It found that, in general, about 30% of those households not eligible for social housing support have high housing costs. That was defined by the ESRI as over 30% of take-home pay with some factors taking into account the ability to afford an ordinary basket of goods afterwards. What was most startling about the survey is that in those two income deciles just above the income thresholds for social housing, 70% of those people had high housing costs, above 40% of take-home pay in many cases. These are people who are in steady jobs but with low pay. Sometimes there are one and a half or two incomes in a household. They are people who, unless something dramatic changes, are unlikely to ever be able to purchase a home and obviously are not eligible for social housing. We have to ensure that that group of people, who would be a main target cohort for affordable cost-rental, will be able to afford the rent that is being proposed.

The great difficulty at the moment is that some of the rental projects that have been proposed would be charging rent above that 30%, because there is no requirement to have a maximum level. The best way to deliver cost-rental is to make it affordable cost-rental, with full cost recovery over the lifespan of the repayment of the loans. The entry level rent should be affordable. I think having affordable rents linked to a maximum of 30% of net income, if the Senator is willing to take that friendly amendment to insert the words "a maximum of" before "30%", would be eminently sensible. If we do not do this and find some way of linking affordability with full cost recovery, which I think can be easily done, there will be a big group of people in between the thresholds for social housing and the actual price that is being charged who will be either locked out or have high housing costs.

Since the Government has repeatedly set itself against raising the thresholds for social housing eligibility, on the basis of the most recent oral questions we had with the Minister of State, Deputy Peter Burke, we have to ensure these people get in. Between €1,200 and €1,300 a month is not affordable for large sections of people. We need rents of between €700 and €900. This amendment would ensure that that would be achieved, especially in local authority developments. I fully support it but would recommend those three additional words.