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

The Minister first became a Minister in the Fine Gael-Labour Party Government in 2011. This was the Government that in its programme said it would eradicate homelessness in five years. That Government made a decision in June 2011 to discontinue capital investment in social housing and to rely instead on the outsourcing of social housing to the private sector. Since 2011, average rents have increased from €740 to €1,500 nationally. In Dublin, average rents are now €2,082. My area of Dún Laoghaire in south Dublin has the highest average rents anywhere in the country at €2,280.

The policy of outsourcing is being discussed in the media today, although I received these answers in July. By the end of this year, housing assistance payments, HAP, the rental accommodation scheme, RAS and leasing arrangements will have cost €1.8 billion. This will go to the private sector. In most cases, it will be to pay for properties that the National Asset Management Agency, NAMA, sold, another decision made by that Government. This is, in itself, fairly extraordinary. One target in Rebuilding Ireland that the Minister met when he had responsibility for housing was to get to 80,000 RAS, HAP and leasing properties. To get another bit of information out there, we now have 61,312 HAP tenancies, 17,507 RAS tenancies and 952 leasing arrangements. There are 10,000 to 15,000 more projected for the course of 2022. This far exceeds the amount of local authority housing or public housing that will be built in that period.

As if all of this, landing us with the housing crisis we are now in, were not bad enough, during the same period, including the period the Minister was the Minister with responsibility for housing, the HAP limits in this dysfunctional incredibly expensive system have not increased since 2017 while rents have continued to increase. Given the average rents in some areas of Dublin, including my area, people are, by definition, homeless if they need accommodation and are relying on HAP limits. The maximum HAP even for people who are homeless is €1,950 and the average HAP is €1,300. In the same period since the Minister entered Government in 2011, the income thresholds for eligibility for social housing have not changed. If people are knocked off the housing list, as many are, because they exceed the income threshold they are not entitled to HAP either. This means they are, by definition, homeless. Does the Minister accept this was a disastrous failure? What will the Government do to compensate those who have suffered as a result in terms of delivering them affordable and secure housing?

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