Rebecca Moynihan (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank everybody for coming in. I was watching the meeting from my office. I may, therefore, go over some questions others have asked, particularly with regard to some of the queries and figures about which Deputy Ó Broin asked.

I pay tribute to some of the staff I deal with in the housing section of DCC on a daily basis. Ms Aisling Browne in acquisitions helped me with a difficult query over the summer and went above and beyond what she needed to do and Mr. Tony Smithers and Ms Sandra Barry did likewise. Staff in the housing section work hard day in, day out, and have huge empathy for the people who bear the brunt of the housing crisis. I include Ms McNamara and Mr. O'Reilly in that as well. I passed Springvale today, for example, which is currently going up. That is a great example of DCC's direct-led delivery. Dolphin House is also an amazing example of good, well-planned delivery. I will come back to some of the delivery problems, however, shortly.

I want to come back to some of the questions Deputy Ó Broin asked in terms of what is planned and in the pipeline and how it is simply not meeting the targets. Another hidden part is the number of people on the transfer list within DCC who are housed through HAP and who are on the transfer list. We must take them into account. Many of them are in overcrowded housing and inappropriate accommodation in the insecure private rental sector. The witnesses do not have to have it with them today, but do they know how many council HAP tenancies have entered or are at risk of homelessness? How many of those have there been within the council over the past year? Of that number, how many tenant in situ purchases were there? Mr. O'Reilly said there are 87 but there are some issues with tenants in situ. I do not understand how people can be housed in the private sector in those houses, yet the alternative is for them to be homeless, even where there are issues. An issue was raised with me regarding an attic being converted and used as a bedroom. How can we achieve flexibly on that to stop people and families entering homelessness? That needs to be our big stop point.

I will come back to Dolphin House, which is an amazing development that has been social housing for a long time. Between 2018 and 2028, it looks like we are going to have 28 homes delivered in phase 1A and phase 1B, and 16 three-bedroom houses for senior citizens. That is 44 homes in ten years, which is simply not acceptable. That is a drop in the ocean.

I want to ask both local authorities this question. Local authority housing lists and income limits have not been revised since 2011. There is a pent-up demand of people who do not meet the social housing threshold, which is currently very low. Do the local authorities have any expectations that if that was raised to €40,000 or even €50,000 per household, of how many additional households would join the city council housing list? While the targets are all well and good to meet a low housing need that exists, as Deputy Fitzpatrick said, the reality is that many more people are caught in that affordability trap. They cannot afford to buy in places like Dublin city, and it blows my mind how expensive Dún Laoghaire is. People cannot afford to buy in places like that yet they do not qualify. Crucially, however, they also do not qualify for HAP and supported housing, which is one of the big and important issues. It has been ten years since they qualified.