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

That is an absolute disgrace but it is typical of a Government trying to divert attention away from its failure to provide public and affordable housing and to essentially blame the victims. I will take one of the administrative areas the Minister is talking about. My administrative area stretches from Little Bray to Sandyford. Let us imagine someone has been on the housing list for 15 years, their kids go to school in Shankill and they get offered somewhere in Sandyford. All their family network, such as their granny who looks after the kids, is in Shankill, and the schools the kids are in are in Shankill. They are told they are getting an offer of a house in Stepaside or Sandyford. They say they are desperate for a place but they cannot take that offer because they would have to uproot all their kids, they would not have the family network, they do not have a car and there are no transport links. This happens all the time. In many cases, houses are substandard, they are too small and there are real problems but out of desperation local authorities will offer them to people even though they are not suitable for particular families. The Government will then punish people by taking them off the list for five years. It is absolutely outrageous.

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