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

First, will the Taoiseach give me a commitment that homeless families will not be evicted from homeless accommodation because they get a job and try to earn a bit of extra income? Will he give me that commitment now and issue that instruction to local authorities?

Second, can I just point out that if they had been housed as they should be, or even got a HAP tenancy, they would not be evicted and their rent would rise with their income. People do not get evicted from a council house because of their income, but if they are homeless, they get removed from the list and evicted from the homeless accommodation because they have increased their income. It is beyond belief. Urgent action needs to be taken.

Why has the review not been completed? The Taoiseach knows and I know, and it is hidden in what he said. The Department is terrified that if it raises the thresholds, more people will be eligible for social housing and then the numbers on the list will rise, which will not look terribly good for the Department. That is not acceptable. Once upon a time, ordinary working people of moderate and medium incomes, or even slightly higher incomes, were able to go into social housing, and there was nothing wrong with it. This will end up with social housing apartheid because the Department does not want to let people on the list in order to massage the figures.

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