Mick Barry (Cork North Central, Solidarity)
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Another fact, which is set out in a Threshold report, is that nearly 50% of HAP tenants are paying top-ups to landlords varying from €20 per month to €575 per month. The report states that the average top-up is €177 per month and closer to €300 per month in urban areas and areas close to them. Threshold notes that 45% of those surveyed say that these top-ups contribute to them seriously struggling to pay utility bills, for groceries and childcare and school costs. Landlords are creaming it in this country and they are being facilitated by the Minister and his policies.

The main point I wish to raise is that of co-living. There has been a huge controversy about this recently and the idea that the Minister's co-living guidelines could potentially allow for a situation in which up to 42 people would share kitchen facilities and sleep in cubicles that would be smaller than a disabled parking space. Co-living has been described by the Minister as an "exciting opportunity" for young workers but it has been described by Threshold as opening the door to 21st century bedsits. Other serious commentators have raised the prospect of 21st century tenements developing. Co-living has an interesting history. In its modern guise, it began as a form of housing pioneered in the 1930s in interwar England by people who had a radical social intent. It was an idea of communal living which went against the laissez-fairemarket policies of the time. It allowed tenants to have democratic control over their living quarters and fed into the idea of the welfare state after the Second World War because it promoted the idea of housing as a universal right. This progressive idea has been completely and utterly turned on its head in recent times by big business and corporate interests, particularly in the United States and Britain. It is very much part of the commodification of housing. The idea promoted by the Minister and some of his Government colleagues that it might allow for a cheaper alternative accommodation for people is knocked on the head by the proposed rent of €1,300 which is linked to one particular planning application. Will the Minister comment on Threshold's proposition that what he is doing is opening the door to 21st century bedsits?