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

There are too many aspects to count in this Government's failure to deal with the cost-of-living crisis. Possibly, the worst of them all is the really catastrophic failure of the Government to deal with the housing crisis that is gripping this country. It is a housing "disaster", as Fr. Peter McVerry rightly put it. That failure means that we now have more than 10,300 families, including more than 3,000 children, who are homeless. There are 120,000 families and households waiting on various housing lists. We also have the vast majority of young and middle-aged working people who simply cannot afford the housing costs they face.

Today we have had further evidence, in a report produced by the Economic and Social Research Institute, ESRI, that this housing crisis is inflicting incredible hardship on people now, being unable to pay the rents being charged and being unable to purchase homes. Moreover, the ESRI is now warning that the current generation of young workers and middle-aged workers are going to be put in a far worse position when they reach pension age than the generations before them. Even though the Government says it is in favour of home ownership, such are the house prices now that huge numbers of people will never ever be able to own their own home. The Government's own housing needs assessment for my area suggests that of the new households to be formed from now on, nobody in my area will be able to afford the house prices. Nobody. This means people will be prey to and trapped in a rental market when they become pensioners. When their income drops, they will be prey to the insecure possibility, even as pensioners, that they could be evicted.

This all comes on top of another ESRI report from just one month ago that stated the number of households in need of support from the Government to provide them with accommodation has increased massively, while the actual level of support has dropped. Whereas 47% of people used to get social housing eligibility or support, this has dropped to 33%, which is a massive stealth cut in housing support made available by the Government. Since last December the Government has sat on a report about raising the income threshold and has refused, despite promises, to give us the outcome of that report. What is the Government going to do in response to the ESRI reports? The ESRI is a Government-funded body. Will the Government listen to it? Will the Government immediately raise income thresholds for social housing support?

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