John McGahon (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I wish to make a couple of points, the first of which relates to housing maintenance and housing transfers in my county of Louth. The county council's problem is that transfers are essentially non-existent. This is because it does not have proper funding to do up the houses. The cost of doing up a house is between €8,000 and €10,000 approximately. The council cannot effect transfers if it does not have the money to do up a house to a good standard for a new tenant. I plead with the Minister of State to consider this funding issue for Louth County Council. It is an important matter.

Under the HAP scheme, the rent limit for an adult in Louth is €575 per week or €650 for a couple. These limits are too low when rents in the Dundalk area are €1,200 or €1,300. I would appreciate it if we could review HAP and increase the limits for single people and couples.

Eviction notices have been mentioned. I do not know whether it is just my part of the world, but there are some chancers among landlords. I have seen more eviction notices served to people in the past two months than ever before. Tenants are coming to me in a panic and I am telling them that there is an eviction ban and setting out the story.

On Monday and Tuesday mornings, I almost become an estate agent because of the number of people from my town who come to me about not being able to find housing to rent. That is because people are sticking in their houses and not moving around. Every Monday and Tuesday, we go through daft.ieand to every estate agent in Dundalk to try to get people housing, but it is difficult. However, there is a positive in this. At the minute, the housing waiting list in Louth is flying. I am not being dramatic. People are flying off the list because we are building so many houses on the outskirts of Dundalk. That is good, as any politician in Dundalk would say regardless of whether he or she was in opposition or government. The key to this success is supply. If we build, we will sort out the housing crisis.