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

I am sharing time with Deputy Mick Barry. I thank Deputy Eamon Ryan for bringing forward the motion. Any motion that seeks to address one important aspect of this crisis, namely, people who are not eligible for council housing and are looking for rental accommodation, which cannot be and is not being delivered by the private market, is welcome. I certainly think we should look at the cost-rental option as one part of addressing this crisis.

Every time we are debating this issue for the next four or five weeks, I will repeat that the Government's continued reliance on the private sector means we need tens of thousands of people out on the streets on 7 April, when the national housing and homelessness coalition, with which many parties in this House are affiliated, is holding a demonstration. The trade unions and ICTU are backing the demonstration and we need people out on the streets. I do not just say that because I like demonstrations and want to criticise the Government.

The Government is still relying too much on the private sector. It says it is going to deliver 50,000 council houses. That is better than what it was talking about before. However, of the 133,000 social housing units the Government is talking about, which is in the region of what we need to deliver, some 83,000 are in the form of housing assistance payments, HAPs, the rental accommodation scheme, RAS, or leasing. Last year, according to the figures, there were 17,000 HAP solutions. Some 2,000 of those tenants are already being evicted. I got this information in a response to a parliamentary question recently.That is 15% facing eviction or whose tenancies are in trouble.

Last year's tenancies were the low-hanging fruit in terms of HAPs. It will be harder to get the rest of the HAP tenancies or to get the landlords; I do not think the Government will get anywhere near 83,000 HAP tenancies this year. Already I am dealing with people in HAP and RAS tenancies being evicted and having to going into hubs. The numbers are increasing. The majority pillar of the Government's plan, however well intentioned it might be, is not going to deliver. We have to look elsewhere, and that means the State has to do it because the private market is completely incapable of it. We need public housing on public land to answer this crisis.

I did not like the spin in the Irish Timestoday. I know Deputy Eamon Ryan did not write the headline, but the implication was that social housing is not going to deal with the rental crisis in the private market. I am sorry but that is incorrect. One of the reasons rents are going through the roof - it is not the only reason - is that huge numbers of people who would normally have got council housing, when we used to build it, are being told to go out and find stuff in the private sector. This is driving up rents. If we built the 100,000 council houses we need, we would drive down rents.

Nor do I like the spin, which perhaps Deputy Eamon Ryan did not mean to put into his article, that reinforces the stigma around social housing. If we want to get rid of the stigma around social housing, we should raise the eligibility criteria so that people on higher incomes can apply for it. Someone rang me today who is accepting €10,000 less in her salary than her employer is willing to pay her because she would be taken off the housing list if she accepted the pay increase. She could not get a mortgage and could not get affordable rental because there is no scheme from the Government on this, and she wants to stay on the housing list. How do we address that? The Green Party's proposals could be part of it but we should also raise the eligibility criteria. One way or another, the State has to build affordable housing. I believe council housing has to be the majority answer to the problem. In addition to that, there is a need for housing that is genuinely affordable to people.

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