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

I am not sure whether the Taoiseach answered on whether the Cabinet committee on housing will meet before the summer recess. He might repeat what he said if he did. It is very important the housing committee meets before the summer recess to tackle a number of things. One of them is the one I have mentioned as it is a serious issue, namely, that the eligibility criteria for cost rental do not align. Huge numbers of the people applying for that, who are supposed in the cohort affected, are being told they cannot even apply. It is crazy.

I also want that Cabinet committee to look at the income thresholds for social housing, and therefore for HAP. If the Taoiseach goes on daft.ieand looks at Cherrywood, which is the biggest residential development in the country, he will not find anything for less than €2,600 per month. The homeless HAP threshold is €1,950. A person must be homeless to get that rate and standard HAP is much lower. In other words, the new housing coming on stream in most of Dublin is totally unaffordable to anybody, except the big investors that can go in and buy it up. Something must be done as a matter of urgency to ensure there are some options for people. Otherwise, the number of people going into homelessness is just going to grow and grow. It is increasingly working people with jobs, kids and so on, who pay their taxes, who are being forced into homelessness because there are no options for them.

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