Declan Breathnach (Louth, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

When speaking on the homeless Bill last week I spoke about the onus on us to come up with some practical solutions but I do not consider the Bill before us to be a practical solution to solving the housing crisis. There is no doubt that it is a time of crisis and that at such times we must come up with emergency solutions and often desperate measures are required. Many young people with children are presenting for social housing and in some instances they are being driven out of their home by certain circumstances.

As a member of a local authority I was accused many times of dealing in the micro rather than the macro but I wish to deal with the micro and I will offer some practical solutions that might help to address homelessness. Currently, people who are in council houses are rightly obliged to advise the council of the occupancy of their house and that occupancy dictates the amount of rent paid. The living alone allowance is a vital source of income for many households together with the fuel allowance. Surely, during this crisis, and until such time as the Government gets to grips with the situation, a relaxation of the scheme would be allowed to operate to incentivise families to provide accommodation for relatives or friends in need. Figures have been touted of up to €1,500 being provided to HAP clients where housing is made available to accommodate a family unit and a lot more than that in the Dublin region. Surely a worthwhile scheme would be to offer genuine households an additional income of, for example, €500 that would be untaxed for making rooms in their home available until we get to grips with this problem.

I asked a question last year about the number of people and the number of approved housing bodies. The response was that there are 547 housing bodies with 6,500 staff. Surely, if some of those staff were relocated back to local authorities to do the job they need to do, we would be able to solve some of the problems. I am very conscious of the fact that I seem to be always allowed in last. Last but not least I wish to refer to half acre sites that have been abandoned in rural areas. Consideration should be given by the Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, to allowing some form of septic tank on them as that would bring back a considerable number of small housing units in the countryside of which people would be delighted to avail.

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