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

A point I have made to the Taoiseach many times is that for people who are working and whose income exceeds the social housing threshold, the only available option is a cost-rental home. However, the delivery of cost-rental homes is very small at the moment and, therefore, people who find themselves in housing difficulty and who are working and over the thresholds, or in quite a few cases people who find themselves homeless, have no options available to them. They do not get the housing assistance payment, HAP, or any rent support. They are not eligible for any social housing that comes onstream. They could be waiting years before cost rental will be available and even when it is, allocation is carried out on a lottery basis so there is no guarantee. I ask the Taoiseach to come up with some assistance for people in that situation. A lottery system is okay when cost-rental homes or affordable housing are available. It is fair at one level. However, some proportion of cost-rental and affordable housing should be prioritised for people who are actually homeless or in very difficult housing situations and threatened with homelessness and where there are children in homeless accommodation.

See this speech in context