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

On evictions, the Minister knows I totally disagree with the decision to lift the moratorium.

I have just got a text from a family who have the bailiffs coming on Tuesday. Both parents are working and they have two kids. The woman works in an insurance company. If she has to go into hostel accommodation, she will also lose her job. Please tell me what I am supposed to do or what they are supposed to do. We should immediately instruct all local authorities to take a can-do attitude when it comes to trying to prevent people being made homeless. In other words, they should not take the attitude that there is no scheme in place and, therefore, there is nothing they can do. What I get all the time from them is that someone does not fit into this scheme or that scheme and there is nothing the local authority can do. There has to be a can-do attitude, not the "My computer says 'No'" attitude that is widespread. That is the first thing I want to ask the Minister.

Second, it is very misguided to waive the development levies. I remind the Minister that the local infrastructure housing activation fund, LIHAF, was operated according to the same principle, in other words, we give these guys millions of euro for infrastructure and we will get affordable housing in return. When that scheme was first introduced the condition was that we would get 40% back in affordable housing. That condition was mysteriously dropped within about three or four weeks. As a result, we did not know how much affordable housing we were to get or what affordable would mean. What this means in Cherrywood, for example, the biggest residential development in the country, is that we have no idea how much we are getting from the LIHAF funding. We have no idea how much affordable housing we will get and how much it will cost. This is the biggest residential development in the country where the infrastructure was paid for by the public, yet the developers are making a fortune and the property being delivered is costing a fortune. I ask the Minister to seriously think about that. Is this the way forward? There is not even any conditionality linked to the waiving of these development fees, so any idea that this measure will bring down price is fantasy. It is not going down to bring down price. I ask the Minister to consider that. I am also interested in his response.

Regarding affordable and cost rental, I will give the Minister one example. I have written to him about this case and raised it about 20 times. It relates to a woman who, interestingly, works with vulnerable children in Tusla. She was in emergency accommodation for four years with her child, who was eight when they went into emergency accommodation and is now 12. Her mental health is on the floor. The computer says "No" to her on everything. She was knocked off the housing list because her income went over the threshold. The Minister then raised the threshold and I said we needed a look-back period.