Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Cork South Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I echo the sentiments of Deputy Creed as raised in the previous debate and I urge the Minister, Deputy Foley, to expedite sites for Le Chéile and Gaelscoil an Chaisleáin.

I appreciate the presence of the Minister of State, Deputy Noonan. I am disappointed the Minister, Deputy O'Brien, is not here because this is a significant issue and it has slipped under the radar somewhat. It is having very real consequences for families. I will give the Minister of State the short version. Families who are under the income thresholds for social housing are being removed and excluded from applying for social housing. They are being taken off list because of a circular the Department issued. This is the long and the short of it. The Department has issued a circular that is now forcing local authorities to take a very blunt approach, not of their own volition but at the Department's behest. It means that people with eight, nine or ten years' credit are being removed even though their income falls below the threshold.

This came about in March when the new household means policy was introduced. It replaced the 2011 policy, which has some detail on what is accessible and what is not accessible. This is not the only problem with it but I will focus on this particular element today. It is high time the income thresholds were reconsidered and brought up because there are so many families for whom a private mortgage is impossible. Some of the affordable housing schemes are also out of reach but they do not qualify for social housing. This needs to be revisited.

Even for those who should be able to qualify, there is now a new complication because the main revisions to the household means policy issued on 26 March 2021 include that a number of payments are to be included in the disregards, such as income relating to pension-related deductions. The key issue is that according to the circular the determination of whether an applicant household meets the income criteria will now be based on a calculation of the preceding 12 months net average income prior to the date of receipt of application. It states this will ensure the most comprehensive picture of a household's current and previous income is available at the point of assessment. This is the new policy.

The Minister of State knows that families and households have peaks and troughs in their income. It will not be a uniform picture all the time, especially in the context of the pandemic but not only in this context. People get periods of overtime, people get laid off, people are given reduced hours and people's hours are increased. This changes all the time. A person's income might be at four or five different places within one year. Previously, under the 2011 policy, local authorities were asked to assess the income. Of course, 12 month's worth of financial details needed to be submitted and appraised but income at the point of application, review or offer was key to the decision and it was on this that ineligibility was based.

I have come across an example of a family that has been removed after eight and a half years on the housing list. It has now lost all of this time. The family is now under the income limit, having briefly exceeded it if it is averaged out, but it is now under the income limit and it has lost all that time. Members of the family are going to their respective parents in two different locations in order to save. Another family on the list for seven years suffered a major drop in income and was made an offer which was refused on the basis of this circular. This is denying families. I do not know whether it always percolates to here that credit time is money in the bank for people and if it is taken off them they cannot just regain it.

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