Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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I can come back to it. With regard to the housing assistance payment, HAP, scheme, I asked last time how the Department would deal with the fact that approximately 75% of the original Rebuilding Ireland plans to deliver social housing between now and the end of the programme are based on the scheme. I asked if this would be reviewed, given the near-certainty that this is not possible. I contend it is certainly not possible to reach that target. Is there any recognition on the Department's side that the targets envisaged for the delivery of HAP cannot be reached? It is important. The 110,000 figure was given for social housing of various sorts, including direct builds, those from approved housing bodies, the HAP, the rental accommodation scheme and so forth. The figure approximates to the number of families or households on the housing list. I presume that is why the figure was given.

To deal with the housing and homelessness crisis we need a plan to eliminate the waiting list. Is the plan to eliminate the list and does the Department have a plan to do so? If the majority of what is proposed in Rebuilding Ireland is dependent on the housing assistance payment scheme, which I perceive to be the case, is there now a recognition within the Department that a substantial portion of that plan cannot be achieved? To demonstrate this, I would like to give a couple of examples.

A family of two adults and two children on a single income of €41,000 does not quality for HAP because of the thresholds, which I also asked about. The minimum rent for a three bedroom house in south Dublin, which this family would need, is €2,350 per month or €28,000 per annum. As I said, the family's net income is €41,000 per annum. They also receive €3,360 per annum in child benefit, giving them a total income of €44,360 per annum. As the family does not qualify for the housing system payment, after they have paid their rent they have €16,000 per annum remaining for all other expenses. Some 63% of this family's income is spent on rent and they do not qualify for housing support. For a family of one adult and one child in receipt of one parent family payment or jobseeker's transition payment, the income per annum is €11,585 plus child benefit of €1,680, giving a total of €13,265 per annum. The minimum rent for a two bedroom apartment in the Dún Laoghaire-south Dublin area, which they would need, is €1,800 per month or €21,000 per annum. The housing assistance payment for this area is €1,250 per month or €1,500 if a person-family is homeless, which equates to a maximum payment for a homeless person-family of €15,000 per annum, leaving a deficit of €6,650 per annum. It should not be forgotten that as part of the HAP scheme people have to pay 16% in rent to the local authority. The total rent payable by this family is €9,000 per annum or 68% of their income. These people cannot even access that accommodation. It is unavailable to them. What does the Department propose to do about this? Does the Department have a plan to address it? Is there a recognition within the Department that it does not have a solution to these issues and that the degree to which the housing plan is dependent on HAP needs to be radically re-examined and similarly the thresholds to allow for housing support for people whose income is a little above the thresholds?

In regard to the statistics around delivery under HAP, including the 12,075 delivered in 2016 and the 15,000 it is projected will be delivered this year, how many of those are recategorisations of people on rent allowance? At first glace one would think 12,000 new social housing units were delivered last year and a further 15,000 will be delivered this year but if the majority of them as I strongly suspect are recategorisations of people previously in receipt of rent allowance and are therefore still in the same private rented property with the same landlord and the same insecurity, critically, because we now know that HAP does not guarantee security, then that is not social housing provision. It is not new social housing. It is not social housing at all because there is no guarantee.

In regard to the 10% social mix and so on, the biggest housing developments in the Dún Laoghaire area in recent times are Honeypark and Cualanor, which are being built in two phases, one under the 20% provision and the other under the 10% provision.

There are 848 units adding up to 108,000 sq. m. Are we measuring in units or in metres? Is there a real social mix here or is it a question of land? In Honeypark the Part V requirement should have added up to either 169 units or else 21,692 sq. m. under the old 20% rule. What we got in reality were 80 social and 63 affordable units with a square meterage of very considerably less than 10%.