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

Last week, I highlighted the case of a family with two autistic children who are living in a tent because they are entitled to absolutely no housing support at all, whether that is the housing assistance payment, HAP, emergency accommodation or social housing, because they are over the social housing income thresholds. For about two years now, I have highlighted the case of a mother who works for a State agency, is living with her child in the same bedroom in emergency accommodation, is not entitled to HAP or social housing and, at one point, was threatened with eviction from emergency accommodation.

These are the bitter fruits of the Government's refusal to raise the income thresholds for social housing and HAP. If someone is not entitled to social housing because of his or her income, that individual is not entitled to HAP or emergency accommodation. The Government recently published a review that was completed in November. That review concluded that we need another review. When will we actually raise the thresholds on social housing? My minute is up now.

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