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

Hundreds of families are being evicted on a monthly basis by landlords who are running away from rent allowance arrangements with local authorities. At any point in time across the Dublin local authority areas, dozens of RAS landlords are evicting tenants. How can the Minister of State expect us to accept that all these people will be brought into the HAP scheme? That is not going to happen. Will he at least admit that of the €3.8 billion allocated, €2.3 billion is for the existing rent allowance budget of the Department of Social Protection? The new funding being provided is actually €1.5 billion, and that is simply not enough. Indeed, it goes nowhere near dealing with the problem in the short or long term. What is required is new houses.

In the meantime, however, I can offer the Minister of State a solution to meet existing need. The National Asset Management Agency, NAMA, has €4 billion in cash. That is our money. Putting even half of it into an emergency programme of social housing construction, to commence immediately, and using whatever empty properties the agency has to provide emergency accommodation would go a good away towards addressing the need that is out there.

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