Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The Minister mentioned several times that his is the party that wants to ensure that people have home ownership and that Sinn Féin is against home ownership. I give an example from my constituency of a separated woman with two children living in a rented house. Her rent increased by almost a third this time last year. Obviously, she can hardly afford it as it is. She has now received a notice that she is to be evicted. She contacted her local authority. She is over the income threshold to get HAP or get on the housing list because she works. She applied for a local authority loan under the local authority loan scheme. She did all the work and sent in all the paperwork. She was very confident she had it because she needed to have a 10% deposit. She said she showed the bank statements from her mother who was giving her the 10% deposit. She was turned down because she must show that 3% of that 10% deposit comes from savings. If it does not come from savings, out the door.

That kind of bureaucracy puts us in the position where people cannot afford to buy a house and live in it. She wants to stay in the house she is in. The landlord is prepared to sell it to her. Everything else is in place. Her only problem is to prove she got this 3% from savings. She cannot do that. If she got the loan and had the mortgage for the house, her mortgage repayments would be almost half of her rent at present. There are the savings if somebody wants to show the savings. However, the Government puts bureaucratic obstacles in the way of people trying to buy a house. I would like the Minister to deal with that.

The Minister has said there will be flexibility. The experience of all of us on this side of the House - I am sure it is the same for Deputies on the other side of the House - is that when we make representations for real people with real problems, there is no flexibility. The flexibility the Minister talks of does not exist. They are told that these are the guidelines, these are the rules and people must obey them. Will the Minister tell the local authorities, not through a letter but through a circular, that they must ensure that people are not made homeless. As has been asked many times on all sides of this Chamber, and I am sure by Government backbenchers as well, where are these people going to go? Where will that woman and her two children go if she cannot buy that house?

At the moment in Sligo town five houses are available for rent. The other day staff in my office were ringing around to see if they could find one for a person on HAP. When they heard the person was on HAP, every one of them said, "We'll come back to you." That means "No" and that when they come back somebody will have that house because immediately they cut them down.

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