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

Some of us believe that this Bill will turn a housing disaster into a complete catastrophe for social housing and homelessness. The Minister of State obviously disputes that and believes it is workable. I do not see how it can be workable, when all the evidence points in the opposite direction, to move towards reliance on private landlords who are jacking up rents and running away from arrangements with local authorities and who have made it clear they have no interest in housing people on low incomes. It will compound a disastrous situation in ways that will become manifest very quickly.

I hope the real review will come from people on the housing lists clamouring at politicians’ clinics, outside local authority offices and outside this building, demanding an immediate reversal of this policy. Time will tell quite quickly. The very least the Government could do is accept this amendment from those of us who are deeply alarmed by what it is doing, and agree to review this scheme every few months, monitor it closely and let us have all the details about what is happening in the different categories of housing need in order that we can assess what is going on. It will be very telling and damning. The Minister of State would obviously argue otherwise, but if she genuinely believes in it, she should make the commitment to regular reviews and to giving us all the detail necessary to make a proper assessment of whether this thing is workable. I hope the Government will at least accept that proposal because this is so serious.

It is beyond draining to have to deal with the day-to-day crises families face and the utter failure of the State to deal with their housing needs. We think this scheme will make that problem worse. At the very least will the Minister of State commit to regular detailed reviews and to providing all the information we will need to assess it?

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