Income Eligibility for Social Housing Supports: Statements

Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage (Deputy Darragh O'Brien)

I wish the Ceann Comhairle and all the staff of the Houses a very happy Christmas. I hope they get time to enjoy it with family and friends. I wish Deputy Ó Broin, his colleagues and all colleagues a happy Christmas. This is probably the last housing debate this side of the new Government. We wait to see what Saturday holds. I wish colleagues a very happy and peaceful Christmas and hope people get to spend some time with their friends and families and have a little down time. We are all acutely aware of the challenges in the housing sphere. At the forefront of my mind over the Christmas season are those who do not have a secure home and live in emergency accommodation. They are the number one priority of this Government.

In regard to the matter of the review of income eligibility for social housing supports, I welcome the opportunity to outline among other things the recent changes to the social housing eligibility thresholds and to set out my proposals to deliver an enhanced social housing income model in the first half of next year. I recently approved changes to income eligibility for social housing which will see thresholds increase by €5,000 across all local authorities from 1 January 2023. They will broaden the base of households eligible for social housing supports and ensure those in most acute need are prioritised. The changes will soften the impact for an estimated additional 16,000 households, of the increases in the cost of accommodation and the cost of living in recent months, as well as ensuring that social housing supports, including the housing assistance payment, will be available to those who need them most. While the changes will come into effect from the new year, I am pleased to say they will be retrospectively applied to some extent. I am keen to ensure that the changes will be implemented in a fair and equitable manner and that unintended consequences are mitigated as much as possible.

Accordingly any application assessed and deemed ineligible between 18 November 2021 and 1 January 2023 and which would have met the new income thresholds can be resubmitted. Moreover, any household removed from the local authority waiting list since 18 November 2021, but which would now qualify under the new thresholds, will be able to retain the time already accrued on the list as well as any time they would have accrued if they had remained on the list. Impacted households will have until 30 June 2023 to resubmit their social housing applications and avail of these transitional arrangements. That is in response to the number of cases I, and other Deputies across the House, have dealt with. We need to ensure that those who were marginally above the previous limits and were removed from the list after spending substantial time on it can now be reinstituted at the original place and also get credit for the period of time they were removed.

I am conscious that not all households will be aware of the changes or the implications for them. Accordingly I have instructed local authorities to take all necessary measures to ensure all affected households are given the greatest opportunity to reapply. This includes, at a minimum, writing formally to the respective applicants to advise them of the changes and possible impact for them.

The current social housing income model, the respective income thresholds, and the local authorities assigned to each income band were introduced in 2011. Prior to this many local authorities did not apply income eligibility limits. To the extent limits were in place, they tended to vary from one local authority to another. There were also very significant variations in how income limits were defined. The result was an inconsistent approach across all local authorities with applicants for social housing support on similar incomes being treated very differently, depending on where they happened to live in the country. Accordingly the current model was introduced in 2011.

The model is standardised and more consistent with a more equitable approach to assessing eligibility than previous approaches. Importantly, the current model reserves housing support for households that cannot support themselves and have a continuing long-term need, while at the same time ensuring constrained public resources are provided to those who need them most. Eligibility is assessed against objective criteria, including level of income.

Local authorities are grouped in three bands for this purpose. The bands and thresholds were developed with reference to the income needed to meet a household's basic needs, plus a comparative analysis of the local rental cost of housing accommodation across the country at that time. The thresholds also included an uplift of €5,000 to broaden the base from which social housing tenants are drawn to promote sustainable communities and provide a degree of future-proofing. Ultimately, those who qualify for support, for all social housing supports, including in more recent years the housing assistance payment, are then placed on the housing list to be allocated a suitable tenancy in accordance with the relevant local authority's allocation scheme.

Notwithstanding an increase in the thresholds for a small number of local authorities earlier in October this year, they have remained largely unchanged since 2011.

In the meantime, accommodation costs have increased significantly nationwide while annual real household disposal income has increased at a slower rate. For this reason, I approved the recent increases to the baseline income thresholds by €5,000 for all local authorities. While I have no doubt this was the right thing to do in the short term and that approximately 16,000 households will benefit from much-needed State support, the changes will be implemented pending the development and roll-out of an alternative or revised income eligibility model in 2023.

Given the time elapsed since the current model was introduced, and the limited changes to the thresholds over that time, it is appropriate that we carry out a comprehensive root and branch review of the current model and determine if the original underpinning objectives are being met. It is opportune to assess whether the current broad system of bands and thresholds is appropriate and, if so, whether the thresholds adequately relate to the cost of securing suitable private rental accommodation across local authority areas, given the income constraints of low-income households. To this end, my Department recently commissioned expertise to review the current model and develop proposals for an enhanced approach that continuously accounts for existing needs. The review will involve analysing the effectiveness of the current model in meeting and identifying long-term need, developing options for an alternative or revised model, and recommending the optimal approach vis-à-vis strengthening or replacing the existing model.

The new model will be based on some key principles or objectives. There will always be households that will have difficulty meeting their housing needs. Accordingly, the model will seek to support disadvantaged and other vulnerable households unable to source adequate accommodation from their own resources, providing such support in the context of constrained supply. Supporting wider housing and social policy objectives of addressing poverty and social inclusion, like the current model, it will seek to target assistance towards households with the greatest needs. It will also try to avoid creating strong inequities between recipient and non-recipient households, for example, avoiding the cliff-edge thresholds that can arise in such models. At the same time, it will need to be sustainable into the future. To this end, the model and relevant thresholds need to be capable of being adjusted regularly to reflect changes to housing costs and incomes, that is, adjusted downward as well as upward, potentially, according to prevailing circumstances.

In bringing forward this work, we also need to be cognisant of the impact on the wider housing and welfare system. It will be important to consider the impact on the demand for social housing, the risk of creating “false eligibility gateways” and the danger of exacerbating demand-side pressures in the housing market generally. That said, while care will be taken not to increase thresholds to a point where supports are de-targeted from the lowest incomes, an appropriate balance will be struck between adequate eligibility thresholds, on the one hand, and ensuring supports are provided to households with greatest need, on the other.

I am pleased to say work has already commenced in this regard. It is being managed by the Housing Agency on my behalf and I expect proposals for a new model to be submitted for my consideration in quarter 1 of next year. While a complex piece of work, when completed it will significantly strengthen the social housing assessment process and place it on a more equitable and sustainable footing. The work is of the utmost importance to me and the Government and is essential in its own right, given the benefit it can yield for so many struggling to make ends meet. However, it is still only one element in a much larger jigsaw under Housing for All. Without substantially increasing supply of housing, public and private, the impact of any changes will be limited, and the year-on-year progress in reducing housing waiting lists could very easily be reversed.

In this regard, increasing housing supply continues to be my No. 1 priority. Boosting housing supply is key to resolving the housing crisis. It will help us better meet demand while also moderating rental costs and house price inflation. It is very easy to ignore the reality that housing supply in Ireland, like much of the EU, has been impacted by Covid-19 and the Russian invasion of Ukraine earlier this year, with rising inflation, labour and supply chain disruptions, and reduced construction activity.

The progress we are making is not often acknowledged by the Opposition but we will move on from that. Last year, we delivered just shy of 21,000 homes and not only will we meet this year's target of 24,600, but we will likely significantly surpass it. By the end of September this year, we had already exceeded last year's output and we are optimistic that we may in fact hit, if not exceed, 28,000 new build completions this year. Moreover, while we have seen the number of planning permissions and commencements decline in recent months against a backdrop of market uncertainty, rising interest rates and viability challenges, the prospects for 2023 are equally positive. The significant uplift in supply in recent years should continue and we expect to come very close to the target of 29,000 set out in Housing for All for 2023.

The recent slowdown in construction activity may yet impact delivery in 2024. However, here again, the Government has responded quickly and with certainty to tackle emerging viability challenges and ensure planning permissions translate into commencements and, in turn, completions. Key measures, among others, include the introduction of the first home scheme in July this year, and we are already seeing people able to buy their home at an affordable rate, with over 700 approvals since July and growing. The significant investment of €450 million for Croí Conaithe will help to further activate supply. There have been strong expressions of interest in Project Tosaigh, through the Land Development Agency, to activate stalled planning permissions and bring forward affordable and social housing in those developments that would not otherwise have been built. I expect to be able to provide an update on that to the House early in quarter 1, hopefully in January.

I have recited it often but it is worth repeating that the Government is providing record funding to address and increase the supply of social, affordable and private housing - more than €4 billion annually. We have a costed and comprehensive plan that is taking hold and gaining momentum. It will deliver the scale of social, affordable and private homes required to resolve this housing crisis, providing 90,000 social homes and at least 54,000 affordable purchase and cost rental homes over its lifetime. Next year alone, local authorities and approved housing bodies, which play a crucial role in delivering social housing, particularly in our two main cities of Dublin and Cork, will deliver almost 12,000 social homes through build, acquisition and leasing, and the vast majority of these will be new builds, which is the focus I have had in this plan.

Some Deputies opposite, in particular Deputy Boyd Barrett, must realise that approved housing bodies build homes too. In addition, 9,000 new tenancies-----

Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett

There have been 886 to date this year.

Deputy Darragh O'Brien

We will deliver this year about 10,500 new social homes across the country. I think even Deputy Boyd Barrett may say that is a significant uplift and it is welcome to the 10,500 households, many of whom I have the pleasure of meeting right across the country, who are getting their safe and secure home for life.

What is important as well is that, for the first time in nearly a generation, we will have affordable homes to purchase through our local authorities, through the first home scheme and through the Land Development Agency, which many Deputies opposite also opposed. In addition, there are hundreds of cost rental tenancies in place and hundreds and thousands more on the way. There are massive opportunities for cost rental. We are doing a piece of work in regard to a further revision of cost rental and we have made changes to the cost rental equity loan, CREL, scheme funding arrangements which have already yielded results, with additional cost rental schemes coming over the last few weeks.

Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett

Buy some as well.

Deputy Darragh O'Brien

I will address that. Also, just this week, I approved another 142 cost rental tenancies which will be delivered late this year and early next year. There is a really strong pipeline coming through.

We would always look at acquisition, which is important, where appropriate. We are looking at schemes at the moment. I have already mentioned dormant or stalled planning permissions, where we are looking at partnering or purchasing to deliver affordable and social homes.

I want to use the opportunity to reiterate the importance of the purchase for tenants in situ scheme. We have made it abundantly clear to local authorities and I also ask Deputies to be very clear. All local authorities have been instructed that where a home is being sold where there is a tenant in situ who is a HAP or RAS tenant, they are to buy that home.

There are more than 700 such tenants and the number is growing every day. I will be providing a breakdown, as I have committed to doing, when we have the data between the purchase with the tenants in situ together with pure acquisitions. That is having an impact and I ask Deputies, if they come across any cases where they believe the local authority is not acting on that, to let me know directly. I have received some cases where we have been able to help move them through. I have met directly with every chief executive in the country and every director of service for housing, and I met them again the week before last by way of a webinar, to reiterate the point. This power has been devolved to them, they now have the power and the resources to do this, and I want them to do it. This is a good measure in increasing our social housing stock and, most importantly, in ensuring that where people who have received a notice to quit in those two categories I have mentioned, they are able to purchase the home and to secure that home for those people for life.

I want to reiterate one thing as I am aware Deputy Boyd Barrett was not here for the very start of my opening remarks. The changes I have made in respect of the income threshold of €5,000 is an interim step. I have brought in a transitionary measure. Many Deputies both in government and in opposition have raised cases with me where people were marginally over the limit over the past year. I thank my officials for the work they have done. They have worked through this with local authorities and there is a retrospective nature to this in the form of a look-back provision that can go back 14 months. If someone is taken off the list, he or she can reapply and go back on the list at the space they were on, with additional time added for the period they were off the list. I have asked each local authority to contact directly in writing those applicants or people who would have been moved off that list. People will have to reapply then and will then get back to their original place on the list. They will have until 30 June next year to do that.

I will be bringing forward in the first quarter of next year the recommendations and proposals around a new social housing income scheme which will be more flexible than the ones we have been dealing with, in particular since 2011. I have outlined that already in my remarks which, I believe, have been circulated to Deputies.

I look forward with interest to the Deputies' contributions. As I did at the outset to Deputy Ó Broin when he was the only Member here on time, I wish the other Deputies a very happy Christmas. I hope they get a break, spend time with family and friends, and I thank them for all for their engagement during the course of the year. While I have not always agreed with everything, it has been interesting.

Deputy Eoin Ó Broin

I, too, extend very warm Christmas greetings to both my colleagues in opposition and in government, but especially to the staff who ensure this building and the work we do in it functions as smoothly as it does. In that, I include all of the official Oireachtas staff, the clerks, the ushers, and let us not forget the catering staff, the cleaners and, in particular at this time of the year, the long-suffering Bills Office staff who have to deal with enormous volumes of legislation at the last minute, and do so with exceptional professionalism. We all owe them a debt of gratitude.

As the Minister knows, our party members, along with others and many in his own party, have been calling for an increase in and widespread reform of social housing income eligibility thresholds for quite some time. As the Minister himself has said, they have not been changed since 2011. Notwithstanding the fact that real incomes have not increased significantly since then, we all have many examples of hard-working modest and low-income constituents who have either been denied access to social housing support or, indeed, been removed from the social housing list, in many cases losing significant numbers of years on a list because of the failure of governments to act on this issue.

When the decision was announced to increase the threshold by €5,000, we all welcomed this, and how could one not? The decision itself, however, raises a whole set of questions, and even with the publication of the review of the income eligibility thresholds that were subsequently published, many of the questions have still not been answered, notwithstanding the fact the Minister is talking about a wider reform which will take place at a later stage. There is a need for a better understanding of why he has taken these decisions at this point. I am not so sure we will get that today given the nature of a Dáil debate, but I have a recommendation which I would like the Minister to consider at the end.

My first issue is that I still do not understand where the €5,000 came from. In the first instance, it is always good to understand the rationale for it. I have read the eligibility review report twice and it does not explain in any clear or concise way where that threshold came from. While I welcome the clarification the Minister has given us today on the retrospective nature of it back to 2021, a point I will come back to later, it is just not clear why that figure of €5,000 was picked. In fact, when I read some of the report, it seems the underlying logic of decisions that were made subsequently has less to do with whether that is a sufficient amount of income to meet the needs of low and modest income working people but, rather, has more to do with the absence of an increase in Exchequer expenditure in respect of direct housing provision, as the report at one point states. There seems to be a concern that if we were to increase the threshold by too much, even if people needed it, that might have an adverse impact on the size of waiting lists, the length of waiting times etc. If that is the case, that is the wrong way to make such a decision.

The second issue I will raise is the continuation of the three bands system, even on an interim basis, which I believe is crazy. It would have been a very small number of households, according to the Minister’s own report, which would have been brought into the social housing support net if the remaining five counties had been brought into band 2. There is just no logic to this, and in fact the Minister’s own departmental report says a table that discusses this matter illustrates that the current three band structure is no longer internally logical given the movement of rents over time. I just do not understand why band 3 remains. I am not arguing against bands. There is a certain logic or validity to having some differentials between the very high areas, predominantly urban and commuter belt counties, and others, but those five counties which remain in the lowest band are getting a very raw deal, particularly given what is happening in rents in some of those counties. That is going to cause significant difficulties.

There are two other areas I wish to refer to which do not seem to receive any meaningful consideration in the report. The first is the thresholds for additional members of a household. It is referred to but there is no consideration of it. In particular, one of my concerns is that we have a growing number of adult children who do not want to remain in the family home after they reach working age but are forced to because of the rental crisis. There is no consideration of whether there could be some level of disregard for their income, given the fact they do not want to be there. Again, I have had cases in my constituency where somebody has turned 18 or 19, gets a job and puts the family off the list. In one case the family lost 11 years on the list because of that. For rent-setting purposes, I know income should be taken into account, but given those people will be living in that household on a temporary basis until they get accommodation, that is unfortunate.

Likewise with income disregards, I have never understood why people in receipt of the working family payment could be removed from the list. It is one of the things that even some of the Minister’s own back bench colleagues have been raising for some time. I had a very sad case of a family who were awarded family income supplement, as it was called at the time, where as a consequence of that they were €1,000 a year over the list threshold, lost their list position, and then, because they had to pay the housing assistance payment, HAP, were much worse off financially. They will not benefit from any of this because they are outside the scope of the Minister’s retrospection. The family income supplement and the working family payment, given it is a recognition by the State that this household does not earn enough money to meet a basic standard of living, should be disregarded. I urge the Minister to consider that in his wider review.

The other issues I was going to raise have been outlined now by the Minister as part of his future review. I will, therefore, comment on a couple of those. I would say, however, that given that it took such a long time to get to this interim measure, I certainly hope it does not take as long to get to the end of the review. I am not making that as a partisan remark. The Minister was given the report of the review of the income eligibility in November of 2021. He has not produced anything comprehensive since then and has produced, as he has admitted himself today, relatively minor and modest interim measures. If it takes as long or longer to produce anything more comprehensive, the five years of this Government’s term of office may be over before anybody gets the benefit of those.

In addition, all those people who lost out in the meantime may not get the benefit of any of these measures and, therefore, time is absolutely of the essence.

One of the issues in the report that concerned me was there seemed to be an implication that when the report assessed affordability for low-income households just above the threshold, it used 35% of net disposable income on rent as a measure. That does not work for households which should be in receipt of social housing. That is why we have differential rent of 10%, 15% or 17%. I urge the Minister, in his further review work, to have a much clearer and more appropriate metric for determining what eligibility may or may not be, because some of the data on this are quite concerning in that respect.

Index linking would be very valuable. We should not wait another ten years for further changes. There has to be some mechanism, whether it is linked to wages or rents, or some index that could be prescribed by way of regulation. It would be very valuable to capture information on those two things. I also have no idea why a significant chunk of the section of the report on affordable schemes and cost rental is redacted. I have a strong idea of what the information is on that. It should be published for all to see. It makes no sense to me whatsoever. I urge the Minister to republish the report without redactions.

I am very disappointed that even in this interim measure, the flexibility we have called on the Minister to introduce with respect to the 12-month look-back on income assessments has not been introduced. Deputy Boyd Barrett and I have been working on a case together for a very long time. In this instance, that case would be resolved because of the raising of the thresholds, although this would follow a year of extreme trauma and emotional discomfort for the family in question. The 12-month look-back is badly designed, however. It is too inflexible and needs to be resolved. I urge the Minister to give greater clarity on it. At this point, some of our local authorities are applying a deliberately rigid interpretation to try to force the Minister's hand, which is a very bad way to operate. In the absence of the Minister introducing flexibility on that, it will a cause a problem. I am happy to discuss that at a later stage.

The Minister needs to come before the Joint Committee on Housing, Heritage and Local Government early next year - I will raise that with colleagues - and not just regarding this report. I understood the Housing Agency did some work on foot of receipt of this report. I presume there has also been some dialogue with the Departments of Public Expenditure and Reform and Finance. The joint committee should be given all of that information. Let us have a very thorough discussion of this with other Members, such as Deputy Boyd Barrett, who are not on the committee but regularly attend its meetings, to inform the Minister's work in order that the subsequent review to the review of the review he is now undertaking can be done in a timely and comprehensive manner. This measure is good for those people who benefit from it but many people have been left behind. The sooner we deal with those people the better.

Deputy Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire

I add my Christmas wishes to the Minister, his departmental staff, my colleagues in the Opposition and in the Government, and the Oireachtas staff who do such a crucial job.

I was relieved to see the increase. It is not perfect. There are questions and issues to be addressed, but I was relieved. The issue of income thresholds was something we increasingly saw in our offices. It created a number of problems. It added to the group of people who fell in that gap between being able to afford a commercial mortgage and qualifying for social housing. That is still very significant. While we can talk about cost rental, cost purchase and so on, it is not anywhere near enough to the income scales. I have previously raised with the Minister the need to significantly increase the targets in that regard. The second problem the thresholds created was for people who were just in or around the income limits and were removed from the housing lists. I do not think that was the intention but last year's circular added to that problem because there was an increased rigidity to the approach taken by local authorities. I met with officials from the Department - I thank them for meeting me - on that issue, which unintentionally added to the problem.

For those of us fortunate enough to be in a position to buy or own homes, and to live in homes we buy, we think in terms of deposits, equity and so on. The phrase I always use in respect of people on social housing lists is that time spent on the list is "money in the bank". I believe the Minister understands this but I am not sure that everyone in this institution understands that this time is equivalent to money in the bank. It is tangible and something people come to rely upon. When that is removed from them, it is a crushing blow. I welcome the fact there is a look-back. It should be longer because this problem has been going on for a long time. This issue is potentially likely to arise again. I will make a suggestion. Of course, inflation will continue and wages will potentially increase and so on but I am of the view that local authorities should be in a position to indefinitely pause or freeze an application. Anyone can have a good year or two. That does not mean they will ever be in a position to buy their own homes in the long run. A file could be put on ice for a year or two and if after two years people do not accumulate credit time but exceed it, they could then be restored to their place on previous credit time.

Deputy Chris Andrews

I, too, extend my Christmas wishes to the Minister, the Minister of State at the Department of Justice, Deputy James Browne, and all the Houses of the Oireachtas staff, who have kept the wheels turning over the past year and do a fantastic job.

The increase in income thresholds is very welcome. I believe the levels should be greater than what is proposed. Inflation, which will continue, was mentioned. The thresholds have to be more flexible. We have called for an increase for years. For too long, workers and families have been penalised for getting slight pay rises into better paying jobs. I spoke to a number of employers this week who said they looked to increase staff wages but their employees said not to do that. It is very important we ensure that people get a fair reward for work that does not hinder their prospects of getting a new home.

It is always shocking to see the councils, as has been mentioned, being very rigid in removing people from the housing lists. People are then caught. They cannot afford to rent, certainly not in Dublin Bay South, where rents are exorbitant. I looked at Daft.ie earlier; it is €4,500 a month for a three-bedroom apartment in that location. When you think about it, it is daft that any family would have to pay that. People are then caught in limbo in low-standard accommodation. They are trying to rent, cannot get public housing and cannot afford to buy their own place. That is a huge issue.

I welcome the increase. It should be more. The retrospective period should be longer because people have come to me, and other colleagues, regarding that.

Deputy Ged Nash

I appreciate the opportunity to speak on this important debate. It is important that we have the opportunity to make statements and have a debate on this very important social issue we have been grappling with for quite some time. I also wish the Minister of State, Deputy James Browne, the Minister and all their colleagues a happy Christmas. I thank, as other colleagues have, all the staff in this institution, and the Minister's staff in the Department, who he has kept especially busy over the past period. The Minister is one of the few people who is not too nervous as he enters this weekend. In fact, Deputy Boyd Barrett may have done him a favour this week with the no confidence motion, which turned into a confidence motion. His position is probably now more galvanised than ever. I wish everybody across the Chamber, and all those who support the work of this House, well over the Christmas period, in addition to a happy, healthy and peaceful new year.

As I said, this is an important debate. I welcome any initiative by the Government to help support people who require additional security and supports to keep a roof over their heads. There are a multiplicity of reasons the income thresholds have not been amended for a decade or more. We will see 16,000 more individuals and households captured by the increase in the income threshold over the next period. The Minister asked us to consider these measures in the context of the overall jigsaw that is Housing for All, an initiative all of us on the Opposition side of the House criticised and critiqued at length when debating the motion of confidence earlier this week.

We do not have faith that Housing for All will achieve even its own modest stated objectives. That is why we in the Labour Party believe that we should be spending at least €1.5 billion more on social and affordable housing next year. The reality is that, when we bring an additional 16,000 households into the ambit of the social housing scheme by way of changes to the income thresholds, we will still have too many people chasing too few properties in the private rental market. That, in itself, will have an impact on the economics of this matter. It is described as an interim measure. As the Minister said earlier, he intends to develop a more sustainable and modern model. That model needs to be capable of capturing changes in the employment market, changing wage rates and changing rates of inflation. It needs to be nimble and agile enough to respond to such changes so that we do not leave people behind, we avoid cliff edges and we avoid the poverty traps we experienced with the old rent supplement system.

Colleagues have mentioned individual cases they have been dealing with that illustrate the problems with the income thresholds and some of the issues in that regard. I deal with such cases all the time. I was recently dealing with the case of a family who are now being threatened with removal from the social housing system because adult children have returned in recent years, a situation Deputy Ó Broin referred to, which is having an impact on the overall net household income. As the Minister of State will understand, that is problematic. We need to be very conscious of this area given the reality and the lived experience of far too many people these days as a result of the inadequacy of housing supply and the reality of adult children in their 20s, 30s and, in some cases, 40s returning home to live with parents who are on a housing assistance payment by virtue of being on the social housing waiting list. I hope that any new model will reflect that reality and be able to absorb such circumstances.

I wish to make one more point, which is a significant one. The current system, with all its rigidities, does not capture this reality. There are three bands. That needs to be addressed while ensuring policy consistency across the system. I will raise an issue that routinely comes up in my own constituency. The challenge of house prices in the southern part of my constituency, that is, south Louth, Drogheda and east Meath, is more akin to that in Meath and north County Dublin. Housing happens to be much cheaper, albeit still not available to the extent that we would like, in areas like Dundalk and Ardee. I would make the case that any new system or model will need to take account of those realities within counties. I would make the case for intracounty thresholds to be introduced, reflecting the reality of the housing cost challenge within counties. I know this is something the Minister and the Department are aware of. It is a constant challenge for Louth County Council.

As I said at the outset, we welcome any initiative that is designed to financially support those who are in difficulty in keeping a secure roof over their heads or in obtaining housing. We look forward to working with the Minister on a new model that is sustainable and agile enough to respond to changes as they occur or at least on an annual basis.

Deputy Éamon Ó Cuív

I welcome the changes introduced by the Minister. They are very timely. The old limits, which were set in 2011, belonged to a totally different world. Over the years, when I asked when these changes would take place, I got the tired old answer that the matter was being studied. For those who were suffering under incredibly low thresholds, being told that the system was being looked at did not give much satisfaction. I am glad the Minister just went and did the simple thing. I often think that, in politics, we have an infinite ability nowadays to make the simple things complicated and to leave people who need something hanging on and not able to get it. Under the previous limits, I encountered the absolutely ridiculous situation in my constituency of people with big families whose sole income came from the Department of Social Protection - there might have been a carer's allowance thrown in for a child with a disability but the sole income was from the Department - being over the income threshold. I know of one family who moved from County Galway to Galway city, where they were just under the threshold because a different band applied. The rents at the edge of Galway city are no different from those just into the county area. The Minister made a welcome move in giving Galway county two jumps. He moved it from band 3 to band 2 and then gave the same general rise that was given across the country. That rose the income limit by €10,000. I welcome that.

The decision made is very welcome and timely. It is simple but it is a big improvement for those who come into our offices looking to get on the housing list. Of course, the system is afraid of encouraging demand. However, demand can only be encouraged among people who need a house. Most people who have the opportunity to buy a house would do so in preference to getting a local authority house because then it is theirs and they can do what they want with it. I do not believe there are too many people seeking to get on a housing list who are otherwise able to buy a house. It is a spurious argument. It is interesting that, up to 2011, there was no income limit at all in some local authority areas. If people said they needed to, they could go on the list. This is fascinating. It would be very interesting to look at whether the demand was absolutely enormous in those counties or whether they did not have an income limit because the demand was not big and because home ownership was more affordable in those counties because many people were able to build on their own sites.

The next point I will make in the few minutes I have is that we are great at getting experts and academics to look at things. I am not against that if the second part of the process is followed. No matter how many degrees he or she has or how scholarly he or she is, someone who is far removed from an issue will take an academic approach to life and is very likely to come up with a scheme that is based on what he or she perceives to be the way in which people should act. However, we all know from our constituency clinics that the way people actually act in this world is much more varied and complex and is not necessarily the way people should theoretically act. We all have experience of people in very similar circumstances coming to us. Whether they own their house or are looking to get a local authority house and no matter what their life circumstances are, you will find that different people handle money very differently. Some people can make money go much further. Some people on very modest incomes could aspire to own a home and, if given the money, could get a loan for a house and pay it back. Such people did in the past when things were a bit easier. There are other people who might have a higher income but who would never be able to handle that for one reason or another. I am not making any moral judgments. I am saying that this is what you find. Life is complex and the theoretical models people create often do not match the realities of people's lives. The income limits should be set in a way that allows for an overlap up to the threshold at which people can get a loan to buy a house. Let us be honest about it, some people on quite reasonable incomes find it very difficult to get even the State loans from the local authorities. These are hard-working people.

It is possible to find out by practice the level at which the vast majority of people can get a loan. This becomes one threshold. The people beneath that level would be eligible for local authority housing. It cannot be that the cut-off level is that of the most parsimonious, the most careful, the most prudent or the most whatever. It is necessary to take a much more nuanced view.

I also think that sometimes changes are made and the system thinks it has come up with great ideas. The first bad idea was the housing assistance payment, HAP. If people are now eligible for permanent local authority housing, then they are also eligible for HAP. If the limit is raised for one, it is also immediately raised for the other. This has consequences. It does not allow for much social nuance in the way the old system did, where we had the social welfare system paying the mortgage or rental supplement. That system was completely independent of eligibility for housing and was done on a different type of means assessment. The two systems were not inexplicably linked and the accusation could not be levelled that private rents were being increased. One of the problems we all know about concerning the HAP system is that it is a great rent inflator. The landlord gains but not the tenant. They are just chasing each other around. Money is then being put into pockets way above the differential rents to try to make up the difference. This is a very flawed system.

The answer to all of this, of course, is to build more houses. It is very simple. One other major change, though, would be to bring the limits down. By being very fussy about eligibility, we have stopped working people being eligible for local authority houses. We have reduced the social mix in housing estates. In my constituency, certainly, the only people eligible are those who are unemployed. We therefore get issues regarding the public perception of social housing, which was not as prevalent in the past, if we go back to the time between the 1930s and the 1960s, when most people who would have been in social housing were working people with jobs. I would like to see many more integrated estates, and raising the income limits is key to achieving this aim. People who make the jump from being dependent on welfare into work should not be immediately cut off.

To come to a parochial point, regarding a big issue in Galway, when people apply to Galway City Council for housing, a choice of areas is allowed where people would like to live. There is Galway city east and Galway city west, but it is also possible to put down the county area as a choice. This is the area of Galway County Council. When people apply for housing to that local authority, they can put down areas in the county, but also those in the city. I have yet, however, to see anybody on the city list getting a house in the county and, even more so, it is highly unlikely that anybody on the county list will get a house in the city, because there is very significant pressure on housing there. After about five, six, seven, eight or even nine years, the people who put down the option, in good faith, of the city and then county, thinking they would be assessed and considered in the county, equal to everybody else who was the same length of time on the list, find they are not really being considered at all by the local authority with which they are not registered.

These people are then on the horns of a dilemma. If, for example, they change from the city list to the county list, which would not be as long and they might be more likely to get a house, they then find they have to go back to the end of the queue. I have contacted the Department, because this policy is Department-driven. It was part of its great amalgamation plan, regarding the two local authorities in Galway, that they wanted this area to stretch from the River Suck in Ballinasloe all the way west out to Clifden, Inishbofin and Ballyconneely. This is halfway across the country and more. It is time the Department resolved this issue and said that people on the city or county list should be considered equally for their earlier preference, regardless of which list they are on.

As we said several elections ago, a lot has been done in the past two years, but nothing was done in the previous nine years except regression. A lot has been done and there is a lot more to do. Until everybody has the opportunity to get permanent, secure tenancies, we cannot rest on our laurels.

Deputy Thomas Gould

I welcome the increase in the social housing thresholds. This was long overdue. For many people, this will make a difference. I come from the Harbour View Road in Knocknaheeny, which is a social housing estate. The provision of social housing gives people, especially working-class people, the opportunity to have homes of their own. My father still lives in Knocknaheeny. He was able to buy his house under the tenant purchase scheme, and my two sisters and I were able to buy or build our own houses. What was important, though, was having the safety net of social housing. I highlight the importance that social housing holds for people and communities. This is why this increase is so important. Deputy Ó Cuív mentioned the social mix, and he is right. What we have now with the current situation is that anyone who does better for themselves, who gets a better job or has more people in the family working, will find they are being denied access to social housing because they go over the limit.

I dealt with a case of a family where, during Covid, the husband got a promotion in work. After almost 13 years on the social housing list, this man and his family were finally able to get a house in an area they wanted to live in. The family went in, got assessed and then got Garda vetted perfectly. Going through their finances then, though, they found they were €800 over the limit. This was after this family had been waiting for 13 years and after they had done everything right. This man was absolutely distraught. Where was the fairness and justice for him?

Now that we are looking at this issue, I ask the Minister to consider some discretion that local authorities could give to people who were under the threshold but may have gone over it in the past year or two. I know dozens of people who have gone over the threshold by small amounts. I am talking about a couple of hundred euro. Will the Minister look at this issue, consider the people who came off the list in recent years and contemplate some allowance or consideration for these people? People have been waiting nine, ten, 11 and 12 years or more. I sincerely ask the Minister to look at this issue to explore what can be done for these people and families.

The other issue I wish to discuss concerns affordable housing schemes. These were supposed to provide an opportunity of home ownership for those above the social housing income thresholds. For some people, this increase will bring them back under the threshold and this is welcome. The pricing of these schemes for many people, though, is not affordable. We have schemes in Cork where the minimum price is €300,000. The income threshold for a large family on the social housing list previously would have been €42,000. This now means someone earning €43,000 will not be able to afford to buy a home for €300,000. It is just impossible. We must help people and bring affordability back because many people are not going to be able to access affordable housing. The situation we have now is that some people can access social housing, some can access affordable housing and others can get private housing.

We have people who are trapped in the middle again and that needs to be looked at.

There are people spending ten, 11, 12 or even 14 years on housing lists. How can this be considered social housing when people are waiting that length of time and when there are children growing up in housing assistance payment, HAP, tenancies, some of which are poor accommodation? They are losing their childhood.

We have had local authorities before the Joint Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage, of which I am a member, for the past couple of weeks and they tell us that if they meet all the Government targets for delivery of social, affordable and cost-rental housing, the housing lists will be bigger in 2026 than they are now. The only solution to social housing is the provision and the building of more housing. Local authorities are not doing direct builds. That is something on which the Minister needs to work with local authorities. I live in Gurranabraher. It was built 80 years ago by the old Cork County Council. We need to get back to doing that.

Deputy Cian O'Callaghan

I would return the good wishes of Happy Christmas to the Minister if he were still here. The Minister has a tendency to leave the Chamber during these debates before either I or Deputy Boyd Barrett speak. We do not take that personally. We merely note it. I will extend Happy Christmas wishes to all my other colleagues in the Dáil, and especially to all the staff who do tremendous work, including the cleaning staff, the catering staff and the ushers, and very much the staff of the Oireachtas service in the Bills Office, who are put under pressure at the end of term in a way they should not be in legislation being rushed through. It would be good in future years if that were not done.

All of us are mindful at this time of year of all the people without homes at Christmastime. This year, to our shame as a national parliament, the number of people living in homeless emergency accommodation is at its highest ever level. The impact that has on all the individuals and the families and the children without a home this Christmas is immense.

We were told, especially during the freezing weather conditions, that there is no shortage of emergency beds for people who are homeless and are sleeping rough. I challenge some of the commentary around that because it is still the case that some people are refused access to emergency accommodation. There was a student from Brazil recently who became homeless and was refused access to emergency accommodation.

Then there are complexities around people who are offered a bed but for whom the offers that are made to them are, for various reasons, wholly inappropriate. There is some badly run private emergency accommodation in this country. I do not refer to all providers. Some people have left that emergency accommodation and feel safer sleeping on the street because they have been robbed and assaulted. That includes, in one hostel, being robbed and assaulted by staff in the hostel. There is a lack in some of the privately run emergency accommodation of any professionally trained social care staff. We have situations where the only security couples who are homeless have in their lives is their relationship and they are told they can get into emergency accommodation but they will have to break up, literally bringing us back to the conditions of the poor houses when family units were broken up. Horrifically, people who have been sexually assaulted and who do not feel safe sharing accommodation with people from whom they feel at risk are told this is their only option, with the result they feel their only option is to sleep rough. We cannot be silent on those issues.

On these measures, while this is a welcome step forward from what has happened, the delay in doing this has caused untold trauma, distress, anxiety, mental health problems and some very severe problems for people who have been getting knocked off the list. These measures will not sort the situation out for everyone. It is a pity this was not done sooner and had not been delayed. On a human level, given what this has done to some people, it is unforgivable it has taken so much time to do this. I am aware, as we all are, of people who have gone through absolute hell as a result of this. It has had all sorts of consequences.

I am aware, as others would be, of people who worked overtime during Covid to keep food production going in factories who do not get overtime otherwise. They were doing overtime because there were people out because of Covid. They will not get the chance to do this again or to get an increase, and they are getting knocked off the list. We have people in other situations working hard and getting promotions in work who are getting knocked off the list but who have no possibility of being able to buy and have a secure home of their own. According to the Minister's comments, the €5,000 threshold is effectively arbitrary and he will get experts to look at the thresholds and the models. If that is the case, as the Minister has said, I do not understand why it has taken him so long to do this as a temporary measure.

I echo the real issue of adult children either returning home or taking up part-time jobs at a relatively younger age of 18, 19 or 20 and that having the effect of, all of a sudden, knocking the household off the list. That has to be addressed. We are talking about adult children who would like to move out and find somewhere affordable to rent. They may even have moved out and had to come back because otherwise they would be homeless. They have no other options. That having the effect of knocking the family off the list is cruel and unfair and has to be addressed.

The Minister talked about wanting to broaden the base in public housing and mixed communities, but he has failed dismally to do that in his term of office. The Minister is halfway through his term now, and if he wants to do this, I would urge him to get on with it. Having sat on a report for this long only to tell us he needs to get more expertise and more reports does not show any commitment or the urgency we need on this.

Deputy Kieran O'Donnell

I am delighted to contribute to this debate. This is something I first brought up in the Dáil on 15 February of this year. I will speak in the context of what I know best, which is my own constituency of Limerick city and north Tipperary. I am conscious there is a Tipperary Deputy present. I refer to Newport, Ballinahinch and Birdhill, to be more precise, in Tipperary.

Constituents of mine were not qualifying for the local authority housing. They were above the income limit, in many cases only barely above. I had a look at the previous scheme. It had an increase of €5,000 and, at that time, the average industrial wage was €38,500. I looked at the average industrial wage today. At roughly €46,000, it is approximately a 20% increase.

I looked at the bands. There are bands 1, 2 and 3. Band 1 is the higher band. That was €35,000 and it has gone now to €40,000. Band 2, which relates to my constituency of Limerick city, is going from €30,000 to €35,000. Band 3, which is going from €25,000 to €30,000, would include Tipperary. I took it that the €5,000 was effectively a 20% increase on the €25,000 and I put that proposal directly. I was not aware of any report that was being completed or the details of that. For me, it was quite logical. The income limit for social housing should be based on the average industrial wage at a particular time.

I very much welcome the measure. That is the logic for me.

We have to look at the average industrial wage and benchmark social housing against it. It will make a very significant difference to people in my constituency whereby they will qualify for the social housing list and the housing assistance payment. In the long term they will qualify for a local authority house in a number of years. This will give them security. Many of them have no possibility of getting a mortgage.

I have a fundamental principle that I hold to. Everyone should aspire to have their own home and be able to aspire, if they can afford it, to purchase a house. This is why we want to make it affordable. There are situations where the State must step in. This is done through the local authority housing lists. Many people in time end up purchasing by way of a tenant purchase scheme. This is a natural progressive way of doing it. I commend the Minister on introducing this. I feel very strongly about this. I deal with it every day in my constituency. This will involve 16,000 people nationwide. This will include a substantial portion of people in my constituency. I will be able to get them on the social housing list. The number on the list will increase but I do not have an issue with this. We have to look at what the realities are.

For the next cohort of people who are above the income limit of €35,000 in Limerick and €30,000 in Tipperary, we must get them to qualify to purchase their own home. There is a local authority affordable housing scheme. At present it has discounts of between 15% and 40%. If the discount is above 20%, people will not qualify for the help-to-buy scheme. I have made a proposal in the House, which is with the Department of Finance, that if the discount is above 20%, the loan-to-value ratio would not be based on the market value of the house but the discounted value of the house versus the mortgage. This would mean people would qualify for the help-to-buy scheme. Furthermore, it would give scope to the Government to provide grants larger than €75,000, which applies where the density is between 35 and 50 per hectare. If the density per hectare is below 35, the grant is €50,000, and if it is above 50, it is €100,000. This would provide scope for the Government to give a higher grant to the builder. We must make houses affordable so that people can buy them and make them viable for builders to build them. If the State has to step in and provide a higher grant and take an equity stake for that grant, so be it. This is how we will get affordable houses built.

I have made a calculation. If a house is worth €300,000 and there is a 40% discount, at four times' earnings, someone on a salary of €41,000 will qualify under the scheme. This would mean the State would take a 40% stake in the house and the individual would have 60% but they could purchase it back over time. It is about an amalgam of issues.

There are other issues we need to consider. As it stands at present, any land purchased prior to July 2021 is not required to have Part V affordable housing if planning permission is obtained prior to July 2026. I would like to see this changed. Every new estate built should automatically have 10% affordable housing. We pay the builders what they require financially to be able to build these houses. This is about money. I am very open. Local authorities can build. Developers and private builders have skill sets we cannot ignore. We must work with them to build. I want to see every private estate being built having 10% of houses available for affordable housing. As it stands at present, many do not because the land was purchased prior to July of last year. They are not required to provide affordable housing if planning permission is obtained before July 2026.

There are 70,000 houses and apartments with planning permission in the system. Not every one of these will be built or viable. We need to look at them and see which can be built, fast-track building them and work with the developers and owners of the sites. They do not require planning permission. This is another way to get houses built quickly.

We need to make people fully aware of all of the schemes such as Croí Cónaithe. In Limerick, the living city initiative is very important. I have got the scheme further revised so that the incentives available for people who will live in the city centre are now increased. It is all about affordability. It is all about catering for every area of society. The increase of €5,000 in the income limit reflects the realities. The benchmark is the average industrial wage. People on the average industrial wage cannot get a mortgage. They are paying very high rents. Now, at least, many of them will be under the limit. People might say it does not go far enough. It is about making certain we bring in something that caters for the realities.

We need to ensure everyone above the social housing income limits is able to purchase homes. If the State has to take equity stakes in these houses, I have no issue with that. If we have to work with builders and developers, I have no issue with that. It is all about controls. It is all very well to say the State can build everything. If local authorities are building houses, who will build them for them? It is builders. They will go out to tender. Those builders have to make a return. It is frustrating for me because people come to me with termination notices or because they want to purchase houses that are not available. It is all about supply. If we build houses, it will take pressure off the rental market with regard to demand.

We are building 28,000 units this year. These are very welcome. It will be a similar number next year. We should be looking to exceed this. Where are the areas we can do this? We can look at the 70,000 units that have planning permission to see which of them are viable and progress them. I expect not all of them will be progressed but a certain share of them will be. We can get these built.

Following this we need to look at the local authority affordable housing scheme to ensure people can qualify for the help-to-buy scheme where the discounts they receive are 20%. The rules on density should not be applied universally throughout the country. There are areas where very high density is not appropriate. There are also areas where it is. The blanket model does not work. The problem is we must think outside the box. We must build the type of units people want to purchase. What do people want? They want starter homes, terraced homes and, in the main, semi-detached houses. This is an area we need to push. We need apartments but not exclusively.

Deputy Aengus Ó Snodaigh

It was interesting to listen to Deputy O'Donnell. The average industrial wage is now more than €50,000. This does not go far enough.

Deputy Kieran O'Donnell

I have taken that from the CSO figures.

Deputy Aengus Ó Snodaigh

You may have taken it but I am telling you that is what the average is.

Deputy Kieran O'Donnell

I have looked at it. It is from the CSO.

Deputy Aengus Ó Snodaigh

It is €50,000. We are still not reaching that minimal figure. The Deputy's argument is right but there is also another argument. A colleague of Deputy O'Donnell in government, Deputy Ó Cuív, said there should not be a threshold and that people should be allowed to be on the social housing list if they want to be on it.

Those who want to be on it would be on it, and those who want to be on the affordable housing list would be on the same list but they would be able to afford to purchase the property if that was their wish. There would be differential rent. There is a way of dealing with this, but we have made a basket case of it in this country. I refer to those who are lucky enough to have a job, such as a general operative in a council. If he or she is married and both of them are working, they are off the list. That is absolute madness. That is because the threshold imposed never grew. If it was right in the first place, it would have been indexed linked. One of the problems with the thresholds of the HAP scheme, and rental allowance before that, is that it was chasing the figures that were being set by the industry and chasing a reduced number of properties.

The Minister was correct when he said we need more houses. Everyone in the Chamber agrees with that but we need them now. We need them built quickly. We also need to stop institutions competing against young couples who have an income. In part of the constituency that I and Deputy Joan Collins represent, there are old Dublin City Council properties. They are concrete houses that are not going to fall down but they are not plush houses and do not have huge amounts of land. They are selling for €400,000. The people who grew up in those estates and were born in those houses cannot afford them. They are being forced outside the city and, once again, as happened during the Celtic tiger years, they are being forced out of their own areas where they grew up and went to school. There is no possibility of them affording or renting them. The cost to rent a house in Ballyfermot on Decies Road, a road on which I lived not long ago, is €2,500. It is absolute madness for any society to allow that amount of rent to be demanded for a house. A house next door is being sold for nearly €300,000, which is again absolute madness. We have to get to grips with this.

More houses must be built but we also have to be realistic that the threshold for social housing is too low. Deputy Ó Cuív and others made the point that if we want a social mix in our communities, we are not going to get it if we force working people out of those communities. Youth workers living in Ballyfermot will not be on the social housing list nor will they be able to afford a house there because their wages are not high enough. That is why an open-ended list would work, as it works in other countries. We still have not got to the stage where the leases for properties are 20, 30 or 40 years long, as they are on the Continent. We should start approaching that and imposing rent limits, as well as rents that are fixed over a period of time. We are way behind where we should be. While the action being taken on income thresholds in Dublin, which come into effect in January, are welcome, it is a small step. It is not going to make a very significant bit of difference to many people who have been forced off the list, have lost their time on record and, reluctantly, have to start the process all over again.

I thank everybody for their help during the year. Bíodh Nollaig Shona agus séasúr maith agaibh ar fad, agus bíodh sos ag an bhfoireann agus ag na Comhaltaí.

Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett

I wish everybody in the House a good Christmas, particularly the service officers, ushers, all the staff in the Oireachtas, the Bills Office, the people who work in the canteens and restaurants, the cleaners and everybody else who helps us operate this place. I thank you all and hope you have a good Christmas.

A young mother with a teenaged son is watching this debate. She is four years in emergency accommodation. She works as an agency worker for a State agency looking after vulnerable children, which is ironic as her teenaged son's mental health is absolutely on the floor because they have spent four years in emergency accommodation. She was three years on the housing list last November when she was told she was about to be housed. Her income was reviewed and she was then told she was off the list. Not only was she not getting a council house, she was now not entitled to HAP. She had to look for a new place and we had to fight to prevent her from being evicted from the emergency accommodation. There is a great deal at stake in this debate.

I have been asking for this debate for months. We have been asking for the review of the income thresholds for a decade. In that time, literally tens of thousands of people have been removed from the list. Up to 2019, in the previous five years, the number of people entitled to social housing dropped from 46% to 33%. That rate is now probably below 30%, before the rise in the income threshold comes into effect. Tens of thousands of people have been taken off the housing list and left in limbo.

In my area, if you were to pay one third of your income on the average rent, you would need to be earning €84,000. You would need to be earning about €150,000 to pay for the average house price. Although this is welcome, even the mother I mentioned, who is just over the threshold, is not guaranteed that she will get her time back. She just texted about her work saying, "Thanks again. We have critical low levels of staff again and I can't do overtime. I can't go for a promotion either even though I have been encouraged." If she did, she might go over the new thresholds. There are major staffing shortages where she works. That is the position people are in. It is absolutely outrageous and it has gone on for years.

A letter that was sent to the Minister on 23 November reads:

Dear Minister.

I am writing to you today for you to listen to my story. I am a mum of two teenaged girls - 13 years of age and 16 years of age - and a wife to a hard-working honest man who has paid his taxes all his life. We unfortunately cannot fix our situation by ourselves. Our home is being sold. We are being evicted. I am 55 years living in my home. My parents were living in it since 1958. They are since deceased. I was led to believe all my life we were safe, as we were lifelong tenants. When we were in a position a few years ago to get a mortgage, we were told our home was not for sale. Now it is for sale, the bank will not give us a mortgage anymore because of our age and income. The woman who is selling the house doesn't even know me or my family. She is the sister of our landlord who died two years ago. I need you to help us because we cannot fix this situation. We are running out of time. When you are at home at Christmas, sitting having your Christmas dinner and sitting back enjoying your family, please have a picture of my family sitting in our car at the side of the road having no Christmas because we do not have a home. My darling, beloved husband will be put into an early grave as he is a broken man. As the dad of the house, as a husband, he cannot fix this.

I do not have time to read all of the letter. That family got a notice from the court, with an enforcement notice, that they will be evicted from their home where they have always paid their rent and did absolutely nothing wrong. They will almost certainly not benefit from the new measures because they will be above the new thresholds. This is a one-income family on an average industrial income. They have no HAP support, nowhere to go and they are pleading for help. What is going to happen to them? Is the Government going to purchase houses in situations where people are not on HAP or RAS, but they clearly do not have the income to afford the rents and house prices I just described? We need to know the answer to this question. They need to know the answer to this question. They cannot be left in a car at the side of the road. If that happens, this State will be a disgrace. Something has to be done about that.

I have two cases, the detail of which I will not go through because I do not have time, of two people who, because they were homeless or their family came to join them in the case of a family reunification, had to get properties where they are overcrowded. They could not find anything else. They are not being given HAP because the properties are overcrowded. That is bureaucratic madness. They do not have anywhere else to go but they are not being given HAP. It has to happen.

The Government needs to recognise the nurses, teachers and the considerable number of people who cannot afford the rents and house prices. They are not entitled to any support if they are over the threshold. The ultimate answer is to deliver the public and affordable housing on public land that is not being delivered. The real figures for this year are an additional 1,600 AHB and local authority houses as of the first six months of this year, which is pathetic. We need to do something about it such as using the unspent €700 million to buy properties where people have been evicted and getting a higher proportion than the 10% or 20% of social housing, immediately and urgently, to have houses for those people. It also means having thresholds that reckon on the incomes people have as against the rents and house prices in their areas. Otherwise, thousands of working people will be left in a serious position. I hope the Minister is listening.

Deputy Jackie Cahill

I wish the community in Leinster House, Members and staff, a very happy Christmas. I hope they enjoy their Christmas and have a healthy and prosperous new year.

I recognise the increase in band 3 to which Deputy O'Donnell referred. We are in band 3 in Tipperary. The increase is most definitely welcome and the €5,000 will bring many more eligible applicants in for housing support and get them on the housing list. I would be a bit greedy and say we need to go higher than €30,000. I have been lobbying for this increase for a number of years and will continue to do so. Even though it is definitely welcome, €30,000 is still a very low threshold. There are families who, even with only one person working outside the house, are unfortunately falling outside the threshold but they cannot afford to build their own house. The threshold needs to be kept under constant review but the increase is most welcome.

I will make a few points specifically on issues with housing in County Tipperary. We are a rural county and what applies to some of the major urban centres just does not work well in Tipperary. We need to reintroduce long-term leasing as an option for small-time landlords. There are no significant commercial land operators in most rural counties and the leasing issues that adversely affected the more urban counties were not an issue in Tipperary.

Small private landlords, who are often incidental landlords, provide a useful support service in accommodating those who are in a position to avail of social housing supports. This is especially the case where there is no significant demand that would facilitate a new-build scheme by a local authority in a rural village. A private landlord may well be able to address that need. Such a landlord also acts to ensure the connectedness and support provided by local communities and families are retained in that rural area. The use of leasing for small-time landlords is not expected to be the main challenge of housing delivery but an important ancillary delivery support that will address the needs of particular circumstances.

With regard to the commencement of a target leasing scheme to be rolled out by the Housing Agency, it relates to new builds only and is for projects of 20 units or more that can be located around the county. While this is a welcome initiative, it is unlikely to be delivered by developers in my constituency given its rural make-up and will not address the key objective of this proposal. Tipperary also needs to be able to assess units already constructed in small towns and villages.

We need a second vacant housing officer given the size and length of Tipperary and the volume of work required to address dereliction and vacancy. Tipperary is a large county and addressing dereliction and vacancy is heavily personnel dependent and is a slow and cumbersome process. Greater activity and results could be generated with a second vacant home officer.

A repair and lease scheme could provide for a tax-based incentive scheme for those property owners in towns of 20,000 and less that is targeted at over-the-shop living. The current repair-and-lease scheme, as recently amended, is beginning to attract some attention for the more commercially-minded operators in the county. Most of the upper floors of our towns are owned by individual property owners who are not developers or significant risk takers. They are not willing to access this scheme because it is effectively a loan and there is a strong reluctance to go down this route. To get the upper floors utilised, it is considered that a tax-based incentive scheme for those property owners in towns of a population of 20,000 or less will actively generate more interest and update the scheme to release much-needed units for accommodation in our towns.

I wish to see the introduction of a targeted, time-limited and location-appropriate tax incentive and other innovative financial support mechanisms that will deliver housing on lands that have planning permission including, but not limited to, reduction of VAT on new builds; an increase in the Central Bank multiplier for purchases to give a better standard of homes being built and lower operational costs of running same; and the consideration of all section-23-type incentives that are targeted, time limited and location specific.

The key delivery challenge in Tipperary is the lack of any private sector new builds either for the affordable first-time buyer or the step-up buyer. The view is that a social housing delivery pipeline will address the key net social housing needs by 2026. I compliment Tipperary County Council on exceeding its targets for social housing. However, those citizens who are seeking to purchase their own home or wish to step up to the next home have no opportunity to do so due to a complete lack of activity by the private sector. It is the key dysfunctional element of the housing market in Tipperary. Only 3.8% of all transactions in the county in the first quarter of 2021 related to new builds and these were generally one-off housing. The view is that it is now essential the Government steps in to assist in the correction of the private housing market, in a limited way and for a limited time, to activate the sector to deliver. It is not reasonable or humane to await the correction of the matter by itself, as citizens are struggling to find accommodation appropriate to their needs and the first home scheme is not set up to assist in addressing the need at this point in time.

With regard to a Housing for All loan to better accommodate those who cannot access social housing supports, in a number of cases individuals were paying private rent consistently over a number of years on current accommodation and are refused permission for a housing loan on the basis they have no substantial savings in place, or a lack of a strong track record on savings. This is despite the fact the private rent being paid would be significantly higher than the monthly loan repayment being sought. Changes should be made to allow for positive consideration of such cases because, if the private rent had been lower, such persons would have been well in position to have a stronger savings record. In addition, the purchase of a property through the Housing for All loan scheme will ensure a better quality of life and a more secure accommodation option.

Every week I have people coming in to my office who are being refused mortgages by their lending institutions. They are going to the county council but few of them are getting through the hoops. We need to seriously look at this. There has to be a far more lenient attitude to giving people who are paying high rent the loan they need to purchase or build their home. The cap on the first home scheme in Tipperary needs to be raised from €250,000 to €290,000 to facilitate affordable housing development to occur. The current cap under the first home scheme in Tipperary will not facilitate any affordable units to be built or sold to first-time buyers. It appears the cap of €250,000 may be based on the sale price of units in Tipperary under the property price register.

The number of new builds in Tipperary is negligible and the vast majority of sales are related to second-hand housing units. In the first quarter of 2022, new build units made up only 3.8% of all transactions in the county. The purchase price point for a standard three-bed new build in Clonmel in 2021 was €270,925 and €194,729 for a second-hand house.

Delivery costs of three-bedroom units supplied by Tipperary County Council as part of our social housing stock currently, in 2022, average between €273,333 and €290,000 depending on the town location. The disparity between the cost of delivering a new-build, three-bedroom house and the purchase price of a second-hand, three-bedroom house is significant in Tipperary compared with the model affordability outputs based on the recent residential property price register data and the prices used as part of the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage's toolkit.

With rising costs of raw materials, labour and energy prices and expected increases in interest rates, it is anticipated that costs of new houses will increase further, so we urgently need the home first scheme threshold to be increased. No individual will be in a position to purchase affordable housing if the cap is retained at €250,000 for the simple reason that it is not possible to deliver a house under that constraint. The final difficulty with the cap constraint is that Tipperary will continue to be extremely unattractive to developers to build new housing units, notwithstanding that the KPMG report on sub-county housing mixed analysis indicates that a second-hand market is unlikely to be able to accommodate the projected demand for housing, even if the current residential pipeline of existing permissions was activated.

I hope that a home first scheme will provide the incentives needed for builders in Tipperary to commence the construction of those sites where active permission is in place, but it now looks very unlikely that the scheme will play any positive role in addressing the issue of housing for those outside the social housing support sector in County Tipperary if the cap constraint is retained at €250,000. I cannot stress how much we need that cap to be increased.

The final point I want to make is about holiday homes which received planning permission on the basis that they were to be solely used for that purpose. With the current emergency, the lack of housing for lease, and refugees coming into the country, that condition on planning needs to be relaxed. If a person wants to lease that house for a long term or for the purpose of housing refugees, that restraint on planning permission should be removed.

An Ceann Comhairle

I thank Deputy Cahill for those words of wisdom.

Deputy Verona Murphy

This area has a whole host of consequences and implications on both sides of the argument. On one hand, we need to increase the thresholds because of the implications of the cost-of-living crisis but I have given examples in the House on multiple occasions of where I believe the Government has contributed to cost of living increases, which we have seen throughout the course of 2022. Naturally, any increase in the cost of living will have the largest impact on those who are least well off in society. Those on lower incomes spend a higher percentage of their incomes on essential items such as food, transport and heating. When those things rise, those on the lowest incomes have to sacrifice something else to help to pay for their essentials. These essentials have all seen large increases in recent months, although thankfully the cost of petrol and diesel is easing at the moment, though no one knows how long it will last. Nonetheless, those on lower incomes will still find it a struggle to make ends meet.

This particular proposal to increase the income thresholds will have the most obvious impact on those who are currently just above the threshold to qualify for social housing. Over the past year or so, this cohort of people will have had their ability to save for their own house severely diminished. The added costs of house-building, through material and labour cost increases, also has an impact on the ability of people to buy or build their own home. We as a society and the Government need to examine why this has come to pass. Why are we in a situation where the person in what would traditionally have been described as a good job can no longer afford to buy what would traditionally have been described as an ordinary family home? There are major questions which cannot be addressed by piecemeal legislation or by tinkering around the edges. There are fundamental questions about the state of our country and the social contract which has developed over the decades since independence and is now broken.

People above the income threshold are being squeezed in every direction. They cannot apply for a social house and rents in many places are hoovering up any potential for discretionary spending or savings that a person might have. People just below the threshold are turning down certain jobs, as we have heard from many colleagues already, for fear that they may no longer be able to qualify for a social house. The Taoiseach previously told my colleague, Deputy Naughten, that the idea of people not being able to progress in work or get an increase in salary because they would be marginally over the social housing thresholds needed to be relaxed. The income limits for social housing have not increased in line with property prices, which have doubled over the last decade, forcing people to turn down work or face the prospect of homelessness. This has to be turned on its head. Our tax and welfare system must actively support people to return to the workforce in any capacity. Work must always be a better option than welfare in the first place. We should start there with a radical overhaul of the working family payment, both with regard to the exclusions and the rates of support, to always make it financially better for families to access employment regardless of their make-up.

On the other side of the coin, will an increase in income thresholds actually help anyone? It goes back to the analogy I used a few weeks ago with regard to the game of musical chairs. There are only so many chairs or, in this case, houses available. If we keep adding participants to the game, they might feel as though they have a chance of success, but the overall picture will simply show that there are still only the same number of participants who end up with a chair or, in this case, a house when the music stops. An increase in the income thresholds would place greater demand on social housing and will ultimately achieve little at the moment other than to increase the length of the waiting lists.

Regardless of what the thresholds are, the fundamental issue is that not enough houses are being built, either by the public or private sector. Plans to increase the number of available houses are wonderful but the physical reality is that house-building is not progressing quickly enough to satisfy the demand which has built up. Satisfying the demand involves the State building social homes but also the Government ensuring that the conditions of the market encourage private builders to survive and operate. This includes large developers but small builders are too often forgotten. They have been crucial to our house-building in recent decades but, unfortunately, many were driven out of business by the financial crash and have not exactly been incentivised or encouraged to get back into the industry. In fact, many of the Government's policies have had the opposite effect and have discouraged the small builder.

Overall, in light of the current circumstances, I agree that income thresholds should be increased, while recognising that the main issue is the lack of supply and the slowness with which that housing supply is being increased. While there is no shortage of schemes, most are only available if there are houses. Too many current schemes inadvertently increase the cost of building any housing unit. The planning policy dictated by the zealots in the Minister's Department means that the high-density developments are just not viable and will remain on paper rather than ever being built unless serious changes are undertaken.

Deputy Paul McAuliffe

I was in the Ceann Comhairle's seat earlier. When one is chairing the Dáil, one should be independent. I found myself inadvertently nodding in agreement each time Deputy Ó Cuív spoke, which I imagine is inappropriate. I have never seen the Ceann Comhairle do it.

An Ceann Comhairle

I must be more discreet.

Deputy Paul McAuliffe

I have to reflect on Deputy Ó Cuív's contribution. For me, it sums up Fianna Fáil's approach to social housing. We have a long-standing commitment to the concept of social and public housing. There are criticisms of where that policy differed in the past. I repeat the line that I gave in the motion of confidence in the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, during the week, that a Fianna Fáil Minister in this new Government has provided more money so that local authorities can build more houses, and homes will be available to more people.

This increase in the local authority income limits is one example of that. Now the increasing number of local authority houses we are building are available to 16,000 more people. I wish to acknowledge the Minister's bravery, though maybe that is not the correct word because I do not think he wants to take credit here. I acknowledge his decision to increase the social housing list by 16,000. Let us be honest that over the past ten years, there was a lack of bravery in not increasing the income limits. Successive Ministers did not increase the limits because they did not want to increase the waiting lists. As a previous Deputy said, that was a denial of reality. The Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, has recognised you cannot have a situation where income limits do not increase for ten years and subsequently people who were on the list for those ten years are removed from it, because either they or a family member have earned more or improved their position, while in no way coming near a situation where they could either privately rent with security for the long term or purchase a home.

Then you can ask yourself the question of whether there should be an income limit at all. It is one we should ask. The introduction of the cost rental model has answered that to some degree because we now have what is effectively public housing support for people right up to what might be close to an income of €80,000. Therefore, people under the income limits for social housing, as well as those above the limits, have access to public housing. In one format it is through local authority housing and on the other side, it is through access to cost rental. However, you must ask yourself whether that is an artificial divide. Perhaps we should be moving to a situation where we use the differential rent calculation and make it available to people of very significant incomes and make public housing available to a much broader group of people.

I argued for that when I was in opposition and when I was in the local authority. An argument put to me by other councillors, officials and so on, was they wanted to maintain an income mix in any new developments. We must address that because the argument was that to provide an income mix by having these two pools of eligibility, you could mix the income in an estate. I believe in the issue of mixed income. That is not to stigmatise anybody but to recognise the genuine reality that when people are dependent on social welfare, it is often for significant reasons and that when we concentrate large numbers of people in an area, that puts great pressure on services and on community. It challenges community and Governments have never supported community in that way. I believe in mixed income, not because I believe in stigma but because I believe in community and in the capacity of community to respond to those issues. Returning to this idea, on a short-term basis, cost rental on one side of the divide and local authority housing on the other can be argued for because it helps us build large new communities. Oscar Traynor Road, for example, will be entirely public housing with 40% cost rental, 40% local authority and 20% affordable purchase. I understand the planning application for that from Dublin City Council will go in either in the next week or so, or early in January. That will allow us build nearly 1,000 houses for people on a mix of incomes and it will be 100% public housing by having those two pools. However, in the long term, we must move to a situation where local authority housing is available to far more people. That is a significant step forward and will increase the ability of people to access housing. It will remove the stigma wrongly associated with people who live in local authority housing and brings us closer to the European model.

I get a little annoyed sometimes when the lead Opposition party talks about Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael being in power for the past ten years. It is even harder to listen when it is followed by the Labour Party standing up and criticising housing when it must be acknowledged its members were in power for five of those ten years. They are not here but Opposition Deputies who actually voted for the vulture fund budgets have stood up and criticised me on this side of the House when I spent ten years in opposition criticising them. Apparently, it is all our fault but there were ten years when Fianna Fáil had no access to Ministers, was not in government and did not have the influence we have now.

Deputy Joan Collins

Deputy, this has been going on for 30 years.

Deputy Paul McAuliffe

Deputy Collins is right that is has been going on for 30 years but we must acknowledge that in the nearly two and a half years in which we have had a Fianna Fáil Minister - we had this debate on Wednesday night - we have made those changes. We are committed to public housing. We want to deliver it. I accept the politics of competition where we all have to criticise each other's performances, and so on, but by any objective assessment, the tools we have given local authorities will mean we will be able to build more public housing over the medium term. An Opposition Deputy said something to me in confidence and so I will not name him. He said "We will probably be cutting the ribbons on houses you guys are building". That is probably true because the Housing for All plan is going to serve this country for more than a decade and we are going to build thousands and thousands of houses, just as we did in the past. That is unashamedly a Fianna Fáil commitment and I am very proud of it.

I am again in agreement with Deputy Ó Cuív that this change to the income limits is an example of Fianna Fáil's commonsense approach to implementing policy. We could go off and have a full report on this. We could have experts and all sorts of other things coming in and I have no doubt that would add to the decision-making in the Department. However, the Minister was clearly frustrated with that process and said he would not wait any longer. He decided to increase the income limits by €5,000. Perhaps it is a bit arbitrary. Perhaps it is based on Deputy O'Donnell's assessment that it has gone up by 20% with the average industrial wage and therefore that is a good figure to apply. What is clear is the Minister did not want to wait any longer and wanted to implement this change. It is not a change that has a budgetary impact and that is one of the reasons I am so critical of my coalition colleagues' ten years in government, as they did not get housing. I say that with respect to them because I think they understood that more than anybody else, after the last election. They did not get housing. They did not get it for ten years and they did not do what we have done with them and our Green Party colleagues over the past two and a half years. This was a very simple change. Regardless of what advice an official gives a Minister, he or she could make this change and the current Minister has done so. It is an example, for me anyway, of the difference between the two lead coalition parties here, because we in Fianna Fáil understand the housing need of people who need local authority housing.

There is a further reason it is so important we have increased local authority income limits. It is a smack in the face to tell somebody they and their children can benefit from the social inclusion programmes we have put in place, which include breakfast clubs, study groups, free books for schoolchildren, access programmes for university allowing their children to study anything any other person on any other income can study and when they graduate they can get a good job, and then to cancel all that, as well as their ten years on the waiting list, because we helped improve that family's ability to earn an income. It is absolutely counterproductive to say to people we are going to help them and their families improve their lives and give them more equal opportunity but when they get it we are going to take away their right to have the local authority house they so desperately need. I commend the Minister on increasing the limits, if for no other reason than that it says to people that if they go out and have the ability to educate themselves and so on - there are people who cannot for good reason and all the rest of it - they should not lose out. I commend the Minister on that and look forward to the further review. I am happy to cede the rest of my time.

Deputy Michael McNamara

I am taking the Rural Independent Group slot. Deputy McAuliffe talked about the Fianna Fáil approach to housing. I grew up outside a town that very much benefited from that Fianna Fáil approach to housing. There were two council estates. They were called "estates" then and not "developments" but it is the same difference. They were very mixed. A large cross-section of society could live in those and the whole society benefited from it.

It enabled people to get housing or stay at home. There was also a factory there that has since closed down. Unlike many parts of rural Ireland, it was not ravaged by emigration to the same extent. There was much emigration but it was not quite as bad as other areas. A small part of that was perhaps due to those estates. What Deputy McAuliffe forgot to say was that those estates had to be built by Fianna Fáil builders, although that is another matter. It is just a matter of fact. That was generally the case across Clare, but I suppose Clare was perceived to be de Valera's county - a Fianna Fáil county. How could you possibly hope to build houses in a Fianna Fáil county if you were not a Fianna Fáil builder? That is an aside.

I want to focus on the present. I do not want to be churlish. There was a very significant societal benefit, but that approach has changed. That is not necessarily because of Fianna Fáil but I do not think what the Minister is heralding is quite a return to those glory days of the past. In Clare at the moment, the threshold is €35,000. If I am not mistaken, for a family of two adults and two children, the income threshold to qualify for social housing is now €38,500. That is an improvement. I welcome every single improvement, and I appreciate that improvements are difficult. They are particularly difficult in the field of housing but €38,500 is still substantially less than the average industrial wage of €45,000.

As I mentioned, there was a factory in Scariff. People who worked in that factory could get a house in that estate and live there. Other people who could not get a job in that factory, or perhaps at times could not get a job anywhere, could also get a house in that estate. It was mixed. That is not the case now. That factory is not there. Even if it was, most factories pay close enough to the average industrial wage. We are not really returning to those days. At that threshold a couple, both of whom who were on the minimum wage - they might be a husband and wife, or they need not be married, or it might not be a male-female relationship - with children would not qualify for social housing in Ireland.

While I welcome what the Minister has done, describing it as brave is maybe a little too much. We should hold off on any plans to take down any of the bronzes around here and put one of the Minister up instead. It is welcome but it is not the stuff revolutions are made of. Hopefully, we can go further in the lifetime of this Government. I appreciate that the Minister is moving in the right direction. I also appreciate Deputy McAuliffe from the Government back benches. It is not easy to be a Government backbencher. I was a Government backbencher too once, albeit at a time when there was not very much money available. I hope such times will not return during the lifetime of this Government.

I do welcome this change but we have a long way to go to return to the days of social housing in Ireland when a very significant number of houses were being built, regardless of who was building them. I do not care who was building them or how the builders were selected. There was a very significant amount of social housing built. I acknowledge that it was built largely by Fianna Fáil Governments but that does not change the fact that Fianna Fáil is in government now and there is a housing crisis. Nobody is expecting the Government to be able to turn it around in 24 months but we have much further to go with regard to the limits on social housing before we can say we have a genuinely inclusive social housing policy in this State again.

Deputy Joan Collins

Following a review last year, all 31 local authorities will see an increase of €5,000 in public housing income thresholds from January. As far as I am aware, this is an interim measure and a broader review of the public housing model is to be completed next year, which will be a review of the review. I hope that in that broader review, the housing income threshold will be increased to at least the average industrial wage. According to the CSO, that is €45,500 per year, although others have said it is €50,000. I am aware that it is not the gross income that is considered for the threshold and limits but the net income.

With Dublin City Council, a single person has to earn less than €35,000 to get onto the housing list. That goes up to €42,000 for three adults plus four children. It is €40,250 for two adults and four children. This €5,000 increase is an improvement and will assist more people to get onto the housing list but it is not what we really need from the point of view of access. A great number of these people who are earning less than the average industrial wage are the ones who are facing very significant rent increases and cannot afford to get a mortgage. They are the 20-, 30- and 40-year-olds who are living at home.

It goes without saying that if more people are on the list, the State must build more housing so these people will not be left languishing on the housing list for ten, 15 or 20 years, as some of my constituents in Dublin South-Central are. It must be State-led, through a State building company, using public lands. There is enough land there to build 100,000 homes. They must also be appropriate homes. That is important.

There are also a number of complications around the housing list. I will flag two instances that need intervention in this broad review. A woman working in retail approached us recently. She and her son are 15 years on the housing list. She got an offer through choice-based letting for a two-bedroom house but at this stage her son is working and contributing to society. She was over the income threshold of €35,875 for one adult and one child because his income was taken into account, and the offer was withdrawn. She had to apply again to the council for one-bedroom accommodation and her adult son had to apply for his own spot on the housing list. This is literally separating families. What is happening there is outrageous. Another family were on the list for a three-bedroom house for 15 years. Their eldest daughter is now working so they had to go down to a two-bedroom house and the daughter had to go on a separate application. There are very significant complications and a great deal of messiness around the housing situation. Public housing should cater for bus workers, railway workers, post office, retail and community workers, right across the band. That is the way it used to be and that is the way it should be again.

Deputy Thomas Pringle

I thank the Ceann Comhairle for the opportunity to speak on this issue. There is no doubt that the social housing income level threshold is far too low. I have been raising this issue for some time now. Thankfully, the Minister has agreed to do something about it, although it is not enough. It is clear that the Minister has also recognised this issue at this late stage. He agreed earlier in the year to increase the social housing eligibility threshold by €5,000 in counties Carlow, Clare, Laois, Westmeath and Galway but has now extended that to across the country from January, which is welcome. It is obviously welcome because anything is better. If there is a disaster, having slightly less of a disaster is slightly better.

It is shocking. Every week and every month people come into my constituency office, people earning €32,000 or €33,000 a year with four or five kids, and I say to them they are never going to get on the housing list. They ask me what they are supposed to do. They can never get a mortgage. I tell them there is nothing they can do. I have to tell them there is nothing I, or anyone, can do for them. This Government does not want to know about them. That is the reality of the situation. Those people are suffering in that way all the time. A young family earning up to €50,000 or €60,000 a year will never get a mortgage and will never be able to buy a house the way things are at the minute. That is the reality of the situation.

I do not think there should be any income limits in respect of the housing list. Everybody should be able to be on it. Deputy McAuliffe said earlier that this was a very brave thing to do.

The reality is that the numbers on the housing list are used as a way of deciding how many houses are provided. The Government works in a bizarre way. It thinks that if the numbers are kept down artificially, it suggests there is not much need so it does not have to provide many houses. That is the reality of the situation. The more people get onto the housing list, the better because the bizarre way the Government and the Department think about the matter is that if more people are on the list, more houses must be provided. If more people are on housing lists, we might get to the point whereby we provide more houses. We do not want lists to be used as a way of controlling the delivery of houses. That is why it is there and exists. It is vital that we get to the point of having a decent and realistic list for people who cannot afford housing. The so-called market that the Government is in love with and enthralled by will not provide houses for those people. They are being left behind across the board. The point of any government or state is to step in and step up to the mark for those people. The Government has not done so. Its representatives can say anything they want about any Fianna Fáil Minister. Housing and public housing started to become run down in the 1980s and 1990s under the watch of Fianna Fáil. Fianna Fáil might not do it as quickly as Fine Gael but it will do it because that is what it has set out to do. That is the sad part about it.

Minister of State at the Department of Justice (Deputy James Browne)

I thank Deputies for their valuable contributions to this important discussion. As stated earlier by the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, the income eligibility thresholds for social housing supports were introduced in 2011 with the key objective of reserving housing assistance for households unable to secure accommodation from their own resources. As a direct response to the increase in the cost of accommodation and the cost of living since the thresholds were introduced, the Minister has acted responsibly to assist vulnerable households who have been most impacted and increased the thresholds by €5,000 across the board pending the development and introduction of a new model in 2023. The increase will bring an estimated additional 16,000 households into the net, lessening the impact on disadvantaged and vulnerable households of the increase in the cost of accommodation and the cost of living generally, and ensuring social housing supports, including the housing assistance payment, will be available to those who need them most. The changes will come into effect from 1 January 2023. This timeline provides local authorities with a minimum notice period to effect any administrative changes that may be needed prior to the revised thresholds coming into effect.

It is important to reiterate that any negative impact on households from the timing of the introductions will be mitigated by the transitional arrangements the Minister has already outlined. While households can reapply and qualify again at any stage, in the normal course of events they would lose time already spent on the social housing waiting list. While such an outcome arises any time there is a recalibration of the income thresholds, such changes should ensure fairness is maintained across the system as a whole and any unintended consequences are mitigated to the greatest extent possible.

The transitional arrangements effectively mean that any household deemed ineligible under the previous thresholds and removed from the relevant local authority waiting list since 18 November 2021, which was the count date of the 2021 summary of social housing assessments, but which now again qualifies because the thresholds have increased, can retain the time already spent on the list as well as any time they would have accrued had they not been removed in the first instance. The effect is to backdate such an application by 18 months. These arrangements will remain in place until June 2023, which will ensure that local authorities have sufficient time to notify impacted households and for those households to resubmit their applications for consideration under the new thresholds. Households that resubmit applications after 30 June 2023 will not be able to retain time previously accrued or which would have accrued to them had they not been removed from the list. The transitional arrangements do not apply to households who applied since 18 November 2021, were deemed ineligible but now qualify, and who were not on the housing list at the time they applied. The changes have been made prior to introducing an alternative model in 2023. The development of the new model, which includes a review of the effectiveness of the existing model and consideration of alternative approaches, will be completed and proposals submitted for the Minister's consideration in the first quarter of 2023.

This work is not without complexity. It is not simply a matter of increasing the thresholds by €1,000, €5,000 or €10,000 merely because doing so will qualify additional households for support. The analysis required is complex. It is critical that any new model, or even a simple recalibration of income limits, reflects the spatial variations in housing costs and incomes, accounts for different household compositions by reflecting commensurate differences in housing and other costs, and targets housing supports towards households with the greatest need. Assessing income, life cycle and other household characteristics is key in this respect, particularly insofar as they determine disadvantage induced by housing costs.

The consequences and impacts of any changes also require measured consideration. There may be implications for the private rental market, including inflationary impacts on rents. There will be implications for cost rental and affordable purchase, and other similar policy interventions.

The most recent changes to thresholds have already reduced the differential between the social housing thresholds and the cost rental eligibility ceiling of €53,000 in those areas where affordability interventions will be delivered, and any further adjustments will have to be carefully considered. We must also consider the risk, given demand is likely to exceed supply into the medium term at least, that widening income eligibility thresholds will hinder supports from being targeted at those on the lowest incomes. While the Government is committed to ensuring supports are available to households with the greatest need, it must strike a balance between doing so and setting thresholds at appropriate levels. All of these issues and more have to be considered before any more fundamental changes can be made.

The overarching principle of social housing support is to secure adequate housing for those households which are unable to provide accommodation from their own resources and have an identified long-term need. The determination of such a need, and of whether a household meets the income criteria, is based, among other things, on their preceding 12 months' net average income prior to the date of receipt of application. This approach, which was introduced in early 2021, reflects the long-term nature of social housing support. It ensures the most comprehensive picture of current and previous income is available at assessment, it ensures fairness and equity, and it ensures those with a continuing long-term need are prioritised.

Concerns have been raised with the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage regarding the unintended consequences of this approach. For example, households, some of which have been on waiting lists for long periods, are being removed from the lists unfairly following assessment under the new requirements and have fallen foul of unintended consequences arising from the policy. Of course, while the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, is sympathetic to the very challenging circumstances faced by households in such cases, he believes local authorities are correctly interpreting and applying the requirements. Similarly, the Minister is not aware of any anomalous outcomes arising or any difficulties being experienced by local authorities applying requirements, and the outcomes in these cases have been consistent with the policy's intent and the principles of social housing support.

Demonstration of long-term need will continue to be a key pillar of the social housing eligibility model. This will not change. It would not be appropriate to assess and determine such need by merely reviewing a household's current income. To do so would be contrary to the intent of the policy and would be an assessment of very short-term rather than long-term need. It would require local authorities to make decisions in respect of circumstances that may or may not continue beyond the short term, thereby introducing uncertainty and inequity into assessments and undermining the principle of social housing as a long-term support.

I will conclude on a general note. There is no doubt but that there are very real problems currently in housing. The Minister is working tirelessly to resolve these problems and doing so will remain his absolute priority. The measures outlined this evening will help to ensure that the most hard-pressed households can access secure, good-quality housing, and that sustainable mechanisms are in place to meet current and future demand for social housing supports. The Minister accepts we do not have nearly enough social housing to meet our needs. While increasing the supply of housing is not something that can be delivered immediately, we are clearly starting to see considerable progress and homes are being built at record rates.

Many things have changed in the 15 months since the initial launch of Housing for All. It is all too easy to criticise and wilfully ignore the significant external shocks the system has experienced on foot of the Covid-19 pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Despite these shocks and the subsequent rising inflation, increasing labour and material costs, increased interest rates and supply chain disruptions - it is convenient to forget we have limited control over these matters - we are significantly increasing housing supply in this country on the back of measures introduced by this Government under Housing for All, and we will continue to do so into the future. This year, we will deliver some 8,000 more homes than in 2021. We expect to deliver a similar, if not greater, number next year. While Housing for All is a plan for everyone, it is appropriate that it places a significant focus on providing social housing. To this end, it commits to delivering over 9,000 new-build social homes next year.

Increasing our social housing stock will reduce the demand on our private rental market and the reliance on the rental market to house those on social housing waiting lists. The Minister continues to make progress and deliver on the commitments under Housing for All. Beyond the measures in Housing for All, the Minister continues to respond urgently where there is most need as he has already done through the winter eviction ban, the renter's credit and the delegated sanction for local authorities to acquire properties where this can prevent homelessness. The Government is committed to putting in place the measures needed to increase the supply of social housing supports. In the meantime, it will continue to protect the vulnerable and provide as many social, affordable and private homes as are needed to end the housing crisis.

Dáil Éireann debate - Thursday, 15 Dec 2022

Income Eligibility for Social Housing Supports: Statements

Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 15 Dec 2022