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

It means that a person will be paying higher rent even though his or her income is the same as other people. That is not fair. I mention the fact that the Minister or previous Governments have not raised the income thresholds. I laughed at the Minister's response to a Topical Issue matter tabled by Deputy Ó Laoghaire the other day, in which the Minister announced the income threshold review for social housing. Does the Minister know how long that review has been going on? It has been going on for approximately four years. I recall that every year - every few months - I would ask the then Minister with responsibility for housing, Eoghan Murphy, about it. I would ask when the income threshold review was coming and he would tell me that it was coming soon and that it was under way. It never came. Why is that? It is because there is a policy in the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage to constantly reduce the number of people who are eligible for social housing, and in effect, to replace much of previous social housing provision on eligibility with cost rental because the rents will be higher in cost rental than they will be in social housing.

In that regard, another ideological phrase from the pragmatists appears yet again in this Bill. I asked the Minister to take the phrase "undue segregation" out of the Land Development Agency Bill 2021 and it appears here. As far as I know, that has not been replaced on Report Stage of the Land Development Agency Bill. The Minister can correct me if I am wrong. He said he would look at it.

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