Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 17 February 2022

Public Accounts Committee

2020 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 34 - Housing, Local Government and Heritage

12:05 pm

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

I just wanted to clarify that. I will ask about the thresholds for social housing. One's income has to be under a certain level before one can go on the social housing waiting list. Those figures, as I recall, have not been reviewed since 2011. Different people, including Ministers, told me as far back as two years ago that a review was happening. There are some answers to parliamentary questions submitted by me and others on this issue. There is a problem there at the moment. Let us take the rural counties of Laois and Offaly as an example. The threshold is €480 for a single person. If one's income is €2 or €3 over that threshold, one cannot apply for social housing. The threshold for a couple with three children is €536, from memory. If such a family has an income of €537, €538 or €539, that family of five cannot get on the housing waiting list. We have arrived at a situation where a labourer, a general worker on the county council, and his or her family, cannot get on the social housing waiting list. Cleaners cannot get on the social housing waiting list. People who are working as labourers on building sites cannot get on the waiting list. People who are working as domestics in kitchens or as home helps cannot get on the waiting list. The lowest paid workers in the State cannot get on the waiting list. That is the situation we have arrived at. Of course, they cannot get a mortgage either. I earlier mentioned people who are receiving HAP but there is a cohort of tens of thousands of people beyond the walls of this building who are in private rented accommodation and working but have not a hope in hell of getting a mortgage.

I accept and acknowledge that the new local authority loan is better than that under Rebuilding Ireland. There have been a number of improvements and I acknowledge that. However, the people I am talking about do not have a hope of being able to get that because their income is not at a point to entitle them to it. There is no point in them going to a bank or building society or any kind of a private lending institution. They have no hope. I know people who are paying half their income on rent. Half of the €390 they earn is going on rent. Some of them are in the HAP scheme but some of them are not. Some are earning €410 or €420 and are paying more than half their income on rent. I regularly come across that situation, as I am sure others do as well. We must do something.

This review has long been promised. When are those income thresholds going to be increased? When will we increase the income levels people must be below before they are entitled to go onto a local authority housing waiting list? It seems to have been going on forever and a day.

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