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

I have three amendments here, Nos. 10, 11 and 37. Amendment No. 10 seeks to delete references to "undue segregation" included in the Bill while No. 11 seeks to replace the term "social background" with "incomes". I also aim to replace references to counteracting undue segregation of persons to again emphasise incomes rather than social backgrounds, which is what the Bill does. Amendment No. 37 proposes making reference to "a broad range of incomes".

I will explain the thinking behind this. I feel very strongly about this issue. In the Dáil last night, we discussed apartheid against Palestinians. What we are talking about here is social apartheid and housing apartheid, which has always existed in the Irish housing sector but which has got considerably worse. The prejudice against social housing and housing for working-class people has reached such a level in Government thinking that a form of social and housing apartheid has become institutionalised. This Bill replicates that, as does the general thinking of Government and the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage in respect of the provision of social housing.

Let me explain what I mean. What on earth does "undue segregation" mean? Is there a due form of segregation? There is undue segregation, which must be avoided, but perhaps there is segregation that is legitimate and due. It is absolutely outrageous. There is no acceptable level of segregation at all. Of course, the reason the Government has included "undue segregation" in the Bill is that it is aware that segregation is widespread.

How does the segregation manifest? It manifests in the Government's refusal to raise income thresholds for eligibility for social housing lists. This refusal means that those who qualify for social housing are on ever lower incomes. Whereas, in the past, bus workers, nurses, postal workers and bank workers could get on a social housing list, none of them can do so anymore. They cannot afford housing on the open market but they are not eligible for social housing because the Government is using social housing to segregate people on the very lowest incomes. This perpetuates and deepens the level of segregation which social housing traditionally avoided because it was available to people on a broad range of incomes. People on middle and even sometimes high incomes would live alongside people on very low incomes and all were eligible for social housing. In my view, if we want to avoid segregation and apartheid, there should be no income thresholds. Anybody should be able to go on a social housing list. If this is not allowed, it is implied that there is something wrong with social housing. In much of Europe, everybody from the university professor and the doctor to the council worker, the nurse and the person who is dependent on social welfare lives in social housing. That is how to avoid any form of segregation, not only this undue segregation.

The other reason the Government has used this phrase "undue segregation" is that segregation is a standard feature of the social housing component of private developments under Part 5. In my area, there is a very big development on the former golf course in Dún Laoghaire called Honeypark and Cualanor. How does the so-called mixed tenure which the Government says it favours to deal with so-called undue segregation manifest in this development? All the social housing tenants are in one block and kept absolutely separate. In many cases the actual quality of the accommodation, including the finishes and general standards, for the social housing component and the private component is different, perpetuating the apartheid.