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

I wish everybody in the House a good Christmas, particularly the service officers, ushers, all the staff in the Oireachtas, the Bills Office, the people who work in the canteens and restaurants, the cleaners and everybody else who helps us operate this place. I thank you all and hope you have a good Christmas.

A young mother with a teenaged son is watching this debate. She is four years in emergency accommodation. She works as an agency worker for a State agency looking after vulnerable children, which is ironic as her teenaged son's mental health is absolutely on the floor because they have spent four years in emergency accommodation. She was three years on the housing list last November when she was told she was about to be housed. Her income was reviewed and she was then told she was off the list. Not only was she not getting a council house, she was now not entitled to HAP. She had to look for a new place and we had to fight to prevent her from being evicted from the emergency accommodation. There is a lot at stake in this debate.

I have been asking for this debate for months. We have been asking for the review of the income thresholds for a decade. In that time, literally tens of thousands of people have been removed from the list. Up to 2019, in the previous five years, the number of people entitled to social housing dropped from 46% to 33%. That rate is now probably below 30%, before the rise in the income threshold comes into effect. Tens of thousands of people have been taken off the housing list and left in limbo.

In my area, if you were to pay one third of your income on the average rent, you would need to be earning €84,000. You would need to be earning about €150,000 to pay for the average house price. Although this is welcome, even the mother I mentioned, who is just over the threshold, is not guaranteed that she will get her time back. She just texted about her work saying, "Thanks again. We have critical low levels of staff again and I can't do overtime. I can't go for a promotion either even though I have been encouraged." If she did, she might go over the new thresholds. There are major staffing shortages where she works. That is the position people are in. It is absolutely outrageous and it has gone on for years.

A letter that was sent to the Minister on 23 November reads:

Dear Minister.

I am writing to you today for you to listen to my story. I am a mum of two teenaged girls - 13 years of age and 16 years of age - and a wife to a hard-working honest man who has paid his taxes all his life. We unfortunately cannot fix our situation by ourselves. Our home is being sold. We are being evicted. I am 55 years living in my home. My parents were living in it since 1958. They are since deceased. I was led to believe all my life we were safe, as we were lifelong tenants. When we were in a position a few years ago to get a mortgage, we were told our home was not for sale. Now it is for sale, the bank will not give us a mortgage anymore because of our age and income. The woman who is selling the house doesn't even know me or my family. She is the sister of our landlord who died two years ago. I need you to help us because we cannot fix this situation. We are running out of time. When you are at home at Christmas, sitting having your Christmas dinner and sitting back enjoying your family, please have a picture of my family sitting in our car at the side of the road having no Christmas because we do not have a home. My darling, beloved husband will be put into an early grave as he is a broken man. As the dad of the house, as a husband, he cannot fix this.

I do not have time to read all of the letter. That family got a notice from the court, with an enforcement notice, that they will be evicted from their home where they have always paid their rent and did absolutely nothing wrong. They will almost certainly not benefit from the new measures because they will be above the new thresholds. This is a one-income family on an average industrial income. They have no HAP support, nowhere to go and they are pleading for help. What is going to happen to them? Is the Government going to purchase houses in situations where people are not on HAP or RAS, but they clearly do not have the income to afford the rents and house prices I just described? We need to know the answer to this question. They need to know the answer to this question. They cannot be left in a car at the side of the road. If that happens, this State will be a disgrace. Something has to be done about that.

I have two cases, the detail of which I will not go through because I do not have time, of to people who, because they were homeless or their family came to join them in the case of a family reunification, had to get properties where they are overcrowded. They could not find anything else. They are not being given HAP because the properties are overcrowded. That is bureaucratic madness. They do not have anywhere else to go but they are not being given HAP. It has to happen.

The Government needs to recognise the nurses, teachers and the considerable number of people who cannot afford the rents and house prices. They are not entitled to any support if they are over the threshold. The ultimate answer is to deliver the public and affordable housing on public land that is not being delivered. The real figures for this year are an additional 1,600 AHB and local authority houses as of the first six months of this year, which is pathetic. We need to do something about it such as using the unspent €700 million to buy properties where people have been evicted and getting a higher proportion than the 10% or 20% of social housing, immediately and urgently, to have houses for those people. It also means having thresholds that reckon on the incomes people have as against the rents and house prices in their areas. Otherwise, thousands of working people will be left in a serious position. I hope the Minister is listening.

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