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

If someone on the social housing list who is facing eviction gets the housing assistance payment, HAP, it is nearly impossible to find accommodation. If someone is over the threshold for social housing, however, they are absolutely goosed because they do not get HAP and cost rental is for the most part unavailable, so they are trapped. I am dealing with a working mother and her child who have spent four years in emergency accommodation because she is not entitled to social housing or HAP and is trapped. She is not even counted on the official housing figures because she is not on the social housing list. I am dealing with another family who are just about to be evicted from their home through no fault of their own. They are slightly over the cost-rental threshold, so the cost-rental tenant in situscheme is not available to them and nor are they entitled to HAP, which, if they could get it, would probably allow them to find somewhere.

Will the Taoiseach immediately address this? Significant numbers in those categories are working people but are not ticking the boxes for the current schemes, and they are going to end up homeless or, in some cases, trapped in homelessness for several years. I appeal to the Taoiseach and the Minister to do something about this before the summer break. I have asked at the Business Committee that we would have a debate on these anomalies in these schemes to address them as a matter of urgency before the summer break.

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