Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Independent)

Websites such as www.daft.ie show that people are being priced out of the market. There are no alternatives. I will certainly send the Minister a note on some of the cases related to children. From my experience, the tenant must always relocate; there has been no realistic alternative to date, although I accept we are in the early days.

I have carried out an analysis of the RAS properties. Kildare County Council was struggling to obtain RAS houses in the part of County Kildare to which I refer. There were other parts in which it was able to get them. There are only 1,100 RAS houses but there is a housing waiting list of 6,047. Circumstances are worse than those in Fingal.

The problem is that there is no RAS option in the part of the county in question because the turnover of houses is minuscule. Where there is a turnover of RAS houses, because people get a job or decide to rent privately, there is some freedom. I ask the Minister to examine the problem in the part of the county to which I refer. If the Department considers the market information that is available to me, I am 100% certain it will find the information I find. I check it regularly. The problem must be managed while we are in a position in which there is no better option. There is a problem; it is not a national problem but there are problems in small parts of the country. The area to which I refer has a serious one.

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