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

Due to the fact that the Minister is linking affordability to market and cost issues, people on low incomes will not be able to afford these houses, in particular in areas like mine where market prices are very high. Given the income thresholds for social housing, thousands of people are having their hopes and dreams, to use the Minister's phrase of earlier, dashed because they are being thrown off housing lists after years of waiting when their incomes marginally exceed the income threshold whether temporarily or simply on foot of the lapse of time. When they are thrown off the housing list, they may lose ten, 15 or even 20 years of waiting time while their incomes still mean they do not have a prayer of buying or renting anything in their area and cannot expect that the affordable housing, which has yet to appear but which the Minister promises will come, will ever be affordable to them. What does he say to those people?

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