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

Yes. I asked for this debate on the housing emergency weeks ago. I have been given four and a half minutes and the Minister has just left the Chamber. It sums up my frustration in trying to get across to the Government what an absolutely disastrous situation we are facing. The human misery that people are suffering because of this housing crisis never fails to shock me. Anybody who has been knocking on doors these past few weeks will have got it in spades. It is just household after household in which there is housing misery of one sort or another. Two or three generations of people are crammed into their parents' or grandparents' house. Mothers are in boxrooms with two or three children. People's mental health is collapsing as a result. They cannot get medical priority they deserve because they do not have enough doctor's evidence to say their mental health is collapsing as a result of the council not wanting to give them priority due to its lack of houses to give them. Some families may be heading towards their third Christmas in homeless hubs with their children. The misery just goes on and on, but what we hear from the Government is that its housing policy is working. The Housing Commission has now confirmed what the dogs in the streets know, which is that it is not working. It is a catastrophic failure. It needs a radical reset.

One of the most telling phrases in the Housing Commission report is that, "the ... strategy to successfully achieve a sustainable housing system is not complicated". However, successive Governments have managed to not only complicate it but fail disastrously. The essence of it is a simple fact. The house prices in Dublin and probably many other parts of the country in which the housing crisis is most acute are out of the reach of approximately 60% to 70% of people. That means that unless we have subsidised housing for 60% or 70% of people in the form of either social or affordable housing, we are going to have a housing crisis. Working people cannot afford these rents or house prices and we do not have enough social housing. We need to grasp the fact, as countries like Austria do, that 50% to 60% of all housing has to be social or affordable housing. That housing should be guaranteed by the State. At the moment, we get 10%. All of these developments that are happening around the place have 10% social housing. We will eventually get an additional 10% affordable housing on newer developments, but it is not enough. If 50% or 60% of people cannot afford the market, then 50% or 60% of everything that is built has to be social and affordable. It is simple. It is about planning the housing output based on the actual needs. We have known for some time that the Government's targets were well below what was necessary to address the housing crisis. For God's sake, can we have thresholds that recognise reality? Imagine the frustration for working people who have been on a housing list for 12, 13 or 14 years and then, just as they are about to get a house, the local authority tells them that it has reviewed their income and they are €1,000 over the threshold and all their waiting time is gone and there is no affordable housing for them. They are banjaxed. They may even be trapped in emergency accommodation and not even entitled to the housing assistance payment, HAP. It is unbelievable. The HAP thresholds are hundreds of euro per month below the rents that are actually being charged. It is a guaranteed recipe for homelessness and human misery. Then there is the tenant in situ scheme - talk about "computer says no" when it comes to people facing eviction. People ask whether there is any chance they can have their property purchased, but there is always a reason to say "No". People are told they are overhoused or underhoused and it cannot be done, rather than the priority being to stop people, particularly children, going into homelessness. I hope this commission report is a wake-up call for the radical change that is necessary, but I have my doubts.

See this speech in context