Richard Boyd Barrett: Demands Raise to Social Housing Thresholds
Richard Boyd Barrett questions the Minister over social housing income thresholds and the removal of long-waiting applicants from housing lists. He demands clarity on when limits will be raised, how much they will change, and what will be done for people thrown off lists in recent years.
What he said: Richard Boyd Barrett pressed the Minister about families who have spent 5, 10 or 15 years on social housing lists only to be removed because a marginal pay rise pushed them over income thresholds. He criticised recent threshold settings that exclude those on an average industrial wage and suggested this may amount to a shift toward higher-rent schemes or cost rental replacing traditional social housing.
Questions to the Minister: Boyd Barrett asked whether threshold limits will be raised before the budget, by how much, and what redress will be offered to those who lost their place on lists. He pressed for a direct answer about timing and compensation for the time people have lost waiting for housing.
Family housing shortage: He highlighted the absence of three- and four-bedroom local authority homes in current and planned developments, linking the shortfall directly to rising child and family homelessness. Boyd Barrett said most new social housing delivery is coming through private developers and that local authority provision is failing to build adequate family-sized homes.
Political implications: The speech frames threshold policy and house-type mix as policy choices with tangible human consequences. Boyd Barrett challenges the Government to act on income limits and to prioritise three- and four-bedroom social housing to address child and family homelessness ahead of the budget.
What he said: Richard Boyd Barrett pressed the Minister about families who have spent 5, 10 or 15 years on social housing lists only to be removed because a marginal pay rise pushed them over income thresholds. He criticised recent threshold settings that exclude those on an average industrial wage and suggested this may amount to a shift toward higher-rent schemes or cost rental replacing traditional social housing.
Questions to the Minister: Boyd Barrett asked whether threshold limits will be raised before the budget, by how much, and what redress will be offered to those who lost their place on lists. He pressed for a direct answer about timing and compensation for the time people have lost waiting for housing.
Family housing shortage: He highlighted the absence of three- and four-bedroom local authority homes in current and planned developments, linking the shortfall directly to rising child and family homelessness. Boyd Barrett said most new social housing delivery is coming through private developers and that local authority provision is failing to build adequate family-sized homes.
Political implications: The speech frames threshold policy and house-type mix as policy choices with tangible human consequences. Boyd Barrett challenges the Government to act on income limits and to prioritise three- and four-bedroom social housing to address child and family homelessness ahead of the budget.
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Transcript
I have asked you again and again and again about the social housing income thresholds and we've had promise after promise that something is going to be done about them. Every single week pretty much now there are people coming in to me who find that they've been on a list, housing list, for 5, 10, 15 years all that time waiting and then because their pay marginally increases they go over the threshold. All the time is gone, they're left in limbo but their income isn't enough to be able to get cost rental or affordable housing. It's so unfair, it is so unfair and for three years, in 2022 or the beginning of 2023 when you last raised the limits and you had to be pushed on that as well, the average industrial wage allowed you to qualify for social housing. Now the average industrial wage you're over, you're over the threshold. It is absolutely unfair and it looks to me like a strategy to get people off the list and maybe even to do away with social housing as we know it and replace it with a higher rent, with a higher rent scheme. Well if it isn't let's see you raise the limits. Are you going to do it before the budget? When are you going to do it? By how much? What are you going to do for the time lost? The people who got thrown off the list over the last three years, who've been left in limbo. So I'd like you to answer those questions. I'd also like to ask you about the three and four bedroom issue in terms of social housing developments. One of the major reasons that we have family homelessness and child homelessness is rising and it's absolutely unacceptable. Child homelessness in particular is because local authorities, even though there is an uptick in social housing delivery, mostly it has to be said through private developers not through direct construction, but insofar as there is, they're not building three and four beds. In my area there are no four beds planned in future developments over the next number of years and the percentage of three beds is absolutely abysmal. Something has to be done about delivering three and four bedroom houses, local authority houses, in order to address child and family homelessness. Thank you Deputy. Now I'll call on Deputy Murphy. Just as Deputy Boyd-Barratt, I dealt with that I think in terms of social housing and in terms of... When what? I just said I dealt with it. The Minister's working on it. It's not that simple. Yeah, yeah, but you didn't acknowledge that we've built 9,000 houses and we're building...