HAP and treatment accommodation
Deputy Bacik raised a woman with anorexia who could not find HAP accommodation near hospital treatment, highlighting wider rental shortages. The Tánaiste said the rental market was extremely tight and pointed to more supply through cost-rental and social housing.
This week I was contacted by a woman in Dublin who suffers from the terrible condition of anorexia. She tells me she has no life but is fighting to get it back by getting treatment. A huge obstacle she is facing in getting treatment for this awful disease is that she is on the housing assistance payment, HAP, and cannot find a rented home near the hospital where she is getting treatment. Hers is just one story of the difficulties so many people are having in securing accommodation where they are on HAP.
Research from our Labour Party housing spokesperson, Senator Moynihan, has shown that just 182 homes across the whole of Ireland are available for single people on HAP. Threshold revealed today that four fifths of renters are struggling to find a home at all while 44% of those in rented accommodation fear their tenancy is insecure. We need to see greater and more urgent action from Government to address this difficulty and ensure that more homes are available for those on HAP and also to ensure that we see better provision made for those who are renting and those who are desperate to buy a home but cannot afford to do so.
Comment on this
I thank the Deputy. It is very hard to find anywhere to rent in Ireland at the moment. There are very few properties available for rent. That is true for people who are on HAP and also for those who are not on HAP. It is very hard to find somewhere to rent even in small rural towns where it would have been very easy in the past. It has become a very serious issue. What can the Government do about it? It can increase housing supply through the cost-rental programme which we are accelerating, providing properties to rent at below the market rate; and build social housing. We will provide more social housing this year than any year in the history of the State, which is a very significant intervention in the housing market. Rental properties will be freed up as a result. The third response, of course, is looking at reasons landlords are exiting. For every landlord that comes in, two now leave.
That is a problem and we need to look at what we can do around that.