Because of the refusal of the Tánaiste’s Government, the previous Government he was part of and the previous Government before that to raise the income threshold for eligibility for social housing, the Economic and Social Research Institute, ESRI, recently pointed out that since 2011, when the Tánaiste entered Government, the number of households eligible for social housing support has dropped from 46% to 33%. To put it another way, had the Government maintained the threshold at the previous level, 260,000 additional families would be eligible for social housing and, critically, for housing assistance payment, HAP, than currently are. I heard the Tánaiste talk about the social wage earlier on. This is a stealth cut of social housing support to hundreds of thousands of people. Weekly, more and more are losing all their years of waiting on the social housing list and their entitlement to housing assistance support. When will the Tánaiste give us a report on the review that he has been sitting on since the end of last year on raising the income thresholds for eligibility for social housing, which has been promised by this Government?

That is with the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage at the moment. Obviously, there is a cost to the Exchequer in raising those thresholds. It is something that will have to be considered in the context of the forthcoming budget. As the Deputy knows, I am somebody who broadly believes in the concept of indexation as a principle, not just for tax credits and tax bands, but also for social welfare, pensions and entitlement to things such as medical cards and social housing. One can argue about whether you index to inflation, earnings or house prices, but as a basic principle, we should index thresholds. That applies to housing as well.

We were promised a review before the end of this-----

That may well still be the case. I will have to check with the Minister.