Dáil should be meeting to deal with housing crisis

Dáil should be meeting to deal with housing crisis

Brian Stanley TD said he met with “representatives of The Simon Community this week, who provide services for the homeless but are striving to stay above water with funding. “Currently out of the total budget for homeless services in the state there is only 1.5% going to the Midlands; Laois Offaly Longford and Westmeath. As a consequence of this families are being referred to hostels, tearing children away from their schools and GP services etc.

In the Dáil Sinn Féin demanded that they sit each day and that the current caretaker Government respond to our homeless crisis by putting extra measures in place along with providing a mid to long term plan for our housing crisis. This Wednesday we again raised this and demanded the Dáil not break and that an all party committee be put together to deal with the homelessness and housing crisis. This request was refused by the current caretaker Government.

Sinn Féin demanded that the Government deal with matters such as housing, health and Irish Water. Labour and Fine Gael have failed spectacularly to make housing a priority despite Minister Alan Kelly making serial announcements on social housing.

The construction of social housing has been almost non-existent with just 6 local authority houses constructed in the last year in Laois.

We are now facing a rental crisis due to the previous Governments legislation which allows landlords to increase rents only every 2 years. As a result rent increases have soared. In Laois rents increased significantly by 10.9% in 2015 and in recent months we have had constituents in our office after their rent increased by up to 20%. An added difficulty has been caused due to the fact that there are almost no houses available to rent within limits set for rent supplements in Laois and these need to be increased urgently.”

Deputy Stanley concluded:

“The lack of action by the Government has significantly increased the rate of homelessness. The Dáil should resume immediately to deal with these pressing matters.”