Violet-Anne Wynne (Clare, Independent) | Oireachtas source

In this House, we quite often talk about numbers and statistics but each one of these represents a household, a family, a pensioner or someone else in need. When these people receive that relevant notice to quit, their world is turned upside down and inside out. The impact on children is astronomical. Mentally, it is a pressure like no other. In Clare, the local authority is working with more than 60 recipients of notices to quit. For further context, there are 2,866 on the social housing waiting list in Clare, 76% of whom are in need of a one-bedroom or two-bedroom property. Although the Minister finally increased twice the income thresholds for County Clare, there were years of delay. From January to April of this year, 35 applications did not qualify and 37 were deemed invalid. I wanted to mention them because I am cognisant of those who are in need but not even able to get on the social housing waiting list. They are still locked out of social housing supports and have nowhere to turn.

Housing for All fails on four points. First, its name, Housing for All, is a smack in the face for those who are in emergency accommodation, those staying with family, those who have received a notice to quit and those just trying to get on the property ladder.

It is also because the Minister has not currently developed a mechanism to record those who are homeless as he only records those who are accessing emergency accommodation.

A further point would be that there have been insufficient targets and we have known that for quite some time. The Housing Commission's report should not be a major shock to many in that regard. Also, the plan does not address or acknowledge the pent-up demand.

I do not have much remaining speaking time but I want to talk about the local authority new builds. When Clare County Council responds, it says that it has reached its delivery target under Housing for All. It has reached a target set by Government and so the job is done. In 2020, however, we saw only 34 such builds, in 2021 we saw only 55, in 2022 we saw 184 but last year we only saw 31. This year, the target is proposed to be 153 but we have already seen a social housing development in Ennistymon being paused because of a lack of the relevant water infrastructure required for the development.

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