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

If the Minister of State is telling me that he can fix the case I mentioned, I will be very happy. I am telling the Minister of State that a person who did some overtime was taken off the list, and then after appealing and fighting the decision the family was told the appeal was not going to be accepted but they could reapply. Once that was done, the family lost their ten years on the list and they are back at the bottom of the list because of the overtime. That is completely unacceptable. If the Minister of State can sort that out, I would be very happy.

I had a case where a working person has refused a €10,000 a year increase in pay from their employer because they would be off the housing list if they took it. Housing in my constituency would be completely unaffordable to that person. That person is actually refusing pay increases. The limits have not increased since 2011. It is ridiculous. Wages are rising at the moment, but they are not rising to a level where people can afford to buy a house. However, they are rising to the extent that people are now above the permitted limits. The housing list is being culled of people who have no other alternatives. It makes a mockery of social mix, because what is happening is that people who traditionally benefited from council housing are being taken off the list, meaning that only people on the very lowest incomes are eligible for social housing. Where is the social mix in that? These limits have to be raised urgently, and the Minister of State has to do something about people who are removed from the list because of small increases.

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