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

The evidence is piling up to the effect that the cutting of rent allowance caps by the Minister is leading directly to homelessness. On three occasions before the summer I was contacted by dozens of families who were threatened with homelessness or had been made homeless as a result of the rent allowance cuts. Since then Focus Ireland, Threshold and other Deputies have raised the issue, but the Minister has stated there has been no incidence of homelessness due to these changes. Again, today, I have presented the Minister with two concrete cases. One involves a former council worker who had worked for 40 years. He had a heart attack, followed by heart surgery during which stents were inserted. He had to leave his job as a result and is now being denied rent allowance. When he met the rent allowance officer and explained that the rent for the place in which he had been living for many years was €800, she laughed at him and suggested he need not bother applying. He is now threatened with homelessness. The other man was a barber who lived in the place where he worked. When he lost his job he was made homeless and is now living in a hostel in Bride Street, although he is from Dún Laoghaire, because he cannot get a place within the rent caps.

I went on the www.daft.ie website today to look for accommodation at or under the rent allowance cap in Dublin. Not one place of accommodation in south Dublin was available at or below €475 per month. These people are facing homelessness. One of them has been made homeless, along with dozens if not hundreds of others. What will the Minister do about it? Will she raise the rent caps back to sustainable levels or introduce rent controls if bringing down rents is the real agenda? At any rate, she should stop this policy, which is making people homeless.

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