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

It was not an accident, it was not an emergency, it was a policy. Let us just be honest about it. It was a policy. The reason so few houses were built in the year the Minister referred to was because a policy decision was made in 2011 to discontinue them. Meanwhile, we were selling properties, which we are now renting back at extraordinary cost. The target for HAP, RAS and leasing was not an accident. It was a policy. It is in Rebuilding Ireland. It was the Minister's policy that the amount of HAP, RAS and leasing would be 2.5 times what we were going to deliver in terms of actual local authority housing.

Is it a contradiction to say I want the thresholds raised? No, it is not. I am sorry. The Minister has created the mess but I am afraid the consequence of this mess is that while the Government ramps up, and it has to do so at far greater speed than it has been doing, it cannot have a situation where people who are ten years on the housing list get made homeless because their average income briefly goes over the threshold. Huge numbers of people have lost out. They cannot afford the rents. They are then thrown off the housing list. HAP levels are not enough in the capital and many other areas for people to get properties. They are, by definition, homeless. I am afraid the Minister is going to have to do something about it. This week, I met a family, who are solely dependent on social welfare and who have been in homeless accommodation for three years, who have been taken off the housing list because they exceeded the limits.

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