Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

The Minister of State should admit to the reality that we have a housing crisis. This is the main issue that comes through my door every day. People come having waited ten years for a housing allocation and with problems with transfers. The rental accommodation scheme is drying up. Some landlords figure they can get more from the private rental schemes than the RAS. We are moving to a position whereby rent allowance is being run by the local authorities. How will it be run? Will the same conditions of RAS apply such as not allowing landlords to push people out of private rented accommodation unless they are selling the home? Staffing levels in the local authority are having to deal with this. Are the resources in place? Housing workers are under severe pressure at the moment without having to take on rent allowance.

Between 90,000 and 100,000 families in the State are on housing waiting lists but the Minister of State referred to 397 units from NAMA, 800 voluntary housing units, 185 new builds and a total of 285 units in Dublin city between 2013 and 2016. It is a disaster. The Minister of State, Deputy O'Sullivan, a member of the Labour Party, is standing over all of this. Why is there no immediate plan to sit down and figure out that 90,000 families need to be housed? That does not include the homeless section. Some ten people present themselves every day to the local authorities from the homeless sector. It is a disaster and there should be a critical response from the Minister of State to the crisis we are facing at the moment.

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