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

This is insanity, yet the Government continues to allow it to persist, resulting in people entering into homelessness.

Regarding income thresholds, I will return to the example of the woman in Nenagh. She earns too much to get social housing support, so she is living in a tent with her kids. For a year, I have been raising the case of a woman who has been in homeless accommodation with her kids for four years. She is working for a State agency that looks after vulnerable children. She is over the threshold, so she is not entitled to social housing support.

This is a major stealth cut. Ten years ago, the percentage of households that were entitled to social housing support was 47%. It is now 30%. This is a major cut in the weekly supports that the State is giving to people who cannot afford to buy or rent on the open market and who number more now than ever before. At a time when we need this support more than ever, we are slashing it and driving people into desperate situations, yet the Minister will still not tell us why he will not raise the income thresholds. It is outrageous. When is the Government going to raise the thresholds? I have been looking for an answer to this from successive Ministers for five years, but I still have no answer. People are suffering because of it.

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