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

I have asked repeatedly, for about five years now, for a review of the income thresholds for eligibility for social housing. Is there any assessment being done of the effect of not raising those thresholds? As I said to the Taoiseach last week, as well as to the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, I am now dealing with two families in homeless accommodation who are going to be evicted from that accommodation. It is not bad enough that they are homeless; they are going to be evicted from being homeless to become roofless. One of the householders got a letter yesterday saying the family has two days to be out of the hotel in which they have been staying. Both families have been homeless for three years.

What is their crime? The parents got a bit of work. For people with a council or housing assistance payment, HAP, tenancy, they do not get thrown out of it because they get work. For people who are homeless, however, who get a job and whose earnings go up a bit, they will be evicted from homeless accommodation and told they will get no more housing support and they are off the housing list. They are thrown to the wolves. That is happening this week and I am hearing of similar cases. It is all because the income thresholds were not raised. I appeal to the Taoiseach to do something urgently about this. In the next two days, a family will put out of homeless accommodation and onto the street. They cannot afford to go anywhere else.

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