Paul Donnelly (Dublin West, Sinn Fein)
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Interestingly, more and more people in their 50s and their 60s are coming to my constituency office having received a notice to quit or a significant rent increase. They may be retired or may have had to leave work early because of illness, etc. They do not have the ability to pay the mortgage they are still paying or to pay their rent. We are seeing that more and more. It is a really sad indictment of our society when this happens to people who have worked for their entire lives. There are also people who have disabilities and could not work. They could not enter the workforce because of the barriers to entry into the workforce for people with disabilities. It is an appalling indictment that those people are facing a fear about where they will be. If they go onto the housing list, we are talking about ten years. It is appalling to tell somebody who is 62 or 63 years of age that they will be on the housing list for a minimum of ten years.