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

I appeal to the Taoiseach again about the Government's attitude towards preventing people ending up homeless. Obviously I think it was an absolutely disastrous decision by the Government to lift the eviction ban. The majority of people who end up homeless do so because they are evicted through no fault of their own. With regard to the other element of why people end up homeless I will cite an example of a mother and her child that I am dealing with at present. She is working in a supermarket and has just got a good promotion. She has been living in her family home. Her family is selling up and she and her daughter face homelessness. She writes that she has done everything and called everyone for a place to rent or live. Everywhere in the area costs €2,800 to €3,000 a month. She can show every example of the email she has sent to thousands. In her case she finally found an apartment for €2,400 that accepts the housing assistance payment, HAP. She states she was lucky to find a place that accepts HAP but has now discovered the rent is too high for her to get HAP and she will not get a top-up because it is considered too high.

This situation is faced by a huge number of working people, some of whom are not even on the social housing list because their income is too high, as I have pointed out relentlessly to the Taoiseach. They are not even entitled to HAP. Something has to be done about this. We will have the figures on Friday and they will show that more and more people who should not be homeless are homeless. They are doing everything they can to source accommodation. The vast majority of them are working and contributing to our society. They cannot find anywhere and they end up homeless because the Government does not have the attitude of stating it will do everything it can to make sure people do not end up homeless, or of making the changes and putting in the schemes necessary to ensure this is the case.

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