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

Yes, we will have three and a half minutes each.

The most important thing one can say to people who are angry and frustrated about the worsening and ongoing housing crisis is that they should come out onto the streets for the Raise the Roof demonstration on 18 May. People are sick and tired of the discussion here and the failure of the Government to address the problem. Just as we defeated the unfair and unjust water charges through mass mobilisation, the only way we are going to force a change to deliver the public and affordable housing we need, have the rent controls we need, stop the land speculation and land sell-off, stop the flow into homelessness, have the right to housing inserted into the Constitution is by getting the people out onto the streets. The people who are on housing lists, in the hubs, living with their parents and grandparents because they cannot afford to buy a home and spending more than 50% or 60% of their income on rent, as well as the young people who have no prospect of having a house they can own or rent in the future unless we address the crisis need to get out onto the streets on 18 May.

The motion the Labour Party has brought forward has aspects with which I agree. We have kept much of it, although we have sought to amend other aspects. There is a role not so much for the banks but for a State construction company that would work with the local authorities as the primary deliverer of local authority and public housing on public land. However, we have added in that we should not just maintain public land but also that there should categorically be no sell-off of public land of any description, in any circumstance, by the State, semi-State companies or local authorities - that is critical - and that there should be aggressive measures to stop land boarding and speculation.

I was hoping the Minister would be present in the House for the debate as I had asked him about this issue today. I want to give a couple of examples to highlight the problem we have to address. First, we need to raise the income thresholds to qualify for social housing. Working people, the people who the Taoiseach said get up early in morning, are being axed from the housing list in their hundreds and thousands because their earnings are ever so slightly above the income thresholds such that they are left in limbo, unable to pay market rents or find affordable housing because it is not available. That has to stop. I asked the Minister about this issue and ask him again about it now. A woman who is working for the HSE has a job that is going to change because of Brexit. She will have to check food imports. Her wages will go up slightly, which means that she will lose eight years on the housing list. As a result, she is thinking of resigning. A man who is a council worker effectively has to do mandatory overtime on a Saturday. As a result, he has been taken off the waiting list having been on it for ten years. I have lots more examples, but I do not have time to go through all of them. It is wrong. If we want to have a social mix, the last thing we want to do is constantly cut people from the social housing application list just because they are working, but that is what is happening. The other thing I have discovered this week is that much of the Part V social housing that has been delivered is of a lower spec and substandard compared to the housing provided in private developments, which is wrong.

My last point concerns the scandal of selling off public land, including NAMA lands and property, to speculators and land hoarders, including the Sentinel building in Sandyford. It is a scandal.

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