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

We found out recently that 33 families and households who had been on the housing list in the Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council area for many years were removed from that list last year because they slightly exceeded the income thresholds. For at least five years, we have been asking for the income thresholds to be increased. We have had promise after promise by the Minister. He told me the review was completed at the end of last year. To give an example, I am aware of a woman who, along with her daughter, has been in homeless accommodation for three and a half years. She is working for a State agency and has just been taken off the list. I know of a couple, one of whom is a hairdresser while the other works in Tesco, who have been removed from the list. These are people on very low incomes. They have now lost all their years on the housing list. Their incomes would never even begin to get near the rents and house prices in the area and they have been removed from the list, yet we still do not have the raising of the income thresholds.

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