Brian Stanley (Laois-Offaly, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I am saying I have heard that before. I am not being dismissive, but real work needs to be done in that area. There are options that need to be tapped into.

In the area of the income thresholds for social housing, in counties Laois and Offaly, the threshold is €480 for a single applicant. For a couple, the threshold is €503. I can rattle off the numbers up the scale. If an applicant has one child, the threshold increases by €15 and so on. I am aware that the Department is reviewing it. One could paper the walls with the replies to parliamentary questions on this issue from various Deputies. The point I wish to make is that there is a whole cohort of people who are just above the income threshold for social housing. There is no option of cost rental or affordable purchase homes for them. It does not exist outside the Pale. There is certainly no option of a mortgage. These people have reams of refusals from banks and building societies. They are going to wind up as pensioners in private rented housing. There will have to be a turbocharged HAP for them. We are looking at HAP for pensioners.

There is also a financial cost in the context of HAP. The rents that we are seeing are not the real rents. Every Deputy, county councillor and Minister in the country will state that their constituents are paying much more than what the rent is supposed to be. Of the tenants that I deal in counties Laois and Offaly, certainly 95% of them are paying top-ups. The point I wish to make is that there is a huge cohort of people who are trapped until kingdom come, in poor private rental accommodation, without security of tenure and rent control. They are left at the mercy of the landlords, some of whom are okay, and some of whom are a long way from being okay. Approximately 140 years ago, the Land League campaigned on the issues of fair rent, fixity of tenure and the right to buy. Now we are in the 21st century trying to get back to that again. I ask the Department to move on the issue of upping the income thresholds for social housing. When can we expect to see that being delivered? I ask for a short answer to that question.