Séamus Healy (Tipperary, Workers and Unemployed Action Group) | Oireachtas source

I have spoken about this issue in the Chamber on numerous occasions over recent years. I have presented a whole range of solutions to the housing and homelessness emergency that we have. I have supported a range of solutions put forward by other Opposition parties and individuals. I have produced my own Bill, the Housing Emergency Measures in the Public Interest Bill 2018, which was voted down by the Government and Fianna Fáil. We have presented a range of solutions to the housing emergency, but the Government is not listening and will not listen because the current housing policy is not an accident. It is not an error of judgment or anything like that. Rather it is deliberate. It is a policy followed by this Government and started by a Fianna Fáil Government in 2002. I was a member of South Tipperary County Council then and I remember well the circular coming from the Department, effectively abandoning public housing provision by local authorities. I warned then that we would end up in a situation like this. This Government is wedded to the current policy, big landlords, vulture funds and cuckoo funds. It is not prepared to listen to solutions from Opposition parties and individuals.

I have spoken a number of times this week on this issue but I want to deal specifically with the question of local authority income limits for housing and the rental situation. Many families are excluded from the local authority housing waiting lists because the income limits are too low. They have been in operation for many years and have never been increased. That means that very low income families are being excluded from the list. In Tipperary, if a family of two adults and two children have €27,501, they will not get on to the housing list. That is not because of the local authority, as the Minister tried to imply this morning. That is because those limits are set by the Minister and the Department. That €27,501 is €8,500 less than the average wage. Families on very low incomes are not getting on the housing list. That means that they have no housing support. They pay full rents over a long period. They are in the catch-22 situation where they will not get a mortgage either. In Tipperary, on €27,501, if a person got a mortgage, it would be for a maximum of €96,000. The average cost of a house in Tipperary is €183,688. It is not possible for that family to get a mortgage. Worse still, most of those families pay in excess of 40% of their income on rent. Many of those families pay more on their rent than they would on a mortgage, if they were able to get one. Threshold has a current example of that. A three-bedroom house in Limerick costs €1,132 per month in rent. If that family was able to get a mortgage for that, it would cost €838 a month, €300 per month less than the rent.

The Government has created that situation. It is outrageous and mad, and it has to be dealt with. I have called on numerous occasions for a statutory emergency to be declared and for the implementation of a nationwide rent freeze at significantly reduced rents.

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