Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Cork South Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The Government boasts of Housing for All but whatever we have, it is not housing for all. We have record rents, record homelessness and record house prices. For a whole generation, having a home of one’s own is just simply beyond reach. People are having to decide between independence now and having one’s money swallowed up by rent, or security later while having to wait at home with parents, even if one has children of one’s own, well into one’s mid-30s. For others, they can have neither security later nor independence now.

For people above social housing income limits and who cannot qualify for a commercial mortgage, there is little to nothing. These are many people working hard, earning decent money and doing everything they have been encouraged to do, but they just do not have a chance and it is getting worse.

We need to radically ramp-up affordable housing targets. The Government targets for affordable purchase homes over the next five years make grim reading. In Cork, the Government only intend to build 378 affordable homes over the next half decade in the city. That is about 76 affordable homes per year in the city. How anyone could think that is enough goes beyond me. Recently, for one project of 32 houses in Glanmire, the council received 800 applications.

I want to briefly mention income thresholds for social housing. As it happens, I raised this with the senior Minister previously. It is a scandal that these have not increased in more than 11 years. More and more people are being knocked off the housing list and have lost that credit time, which is time that they had invested. This is like money in the bank to people. It is seven or eight years, then, the person is taken off the list and is left with nothing, with no place to go and with no real prospects of ever being able to afford a mortgage. I have dealt in regard to this issue with several families recently and it is heartbreaking. None of these people are expecting a home overnight and just want the chance to build up their time. I urge the Minister of State to move on this. I am unsure what objections are coming from within the Department and I know that the senior Minister himself is sympathetic. If this is based on how many people are on the housing list, access HAP and so on - I cannot say if it is or not - that would be cynicism on a cruel level. If that is the case it is unacceptable that calculations like that are keeping people off and knocking people off the housing list. The price of everything is going up and we are still dealing with housing income limits that were too low six years ago, not to mind now. This urgently needs to be dealt with.

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