Social housing passport
Deputy Louise O’Reilly presses for a social housing passport so applicants can transfer waiting time between local authority lists. The Taoiseach says work is ongoing and that safeguards will be needed so transfers do not disadvantage long-waiting local applicants.
On page 55 of the programme for Government, there is a commitment to introduce a social housing passport to allow households to move from one local authority housing list to another. This provision has been in every single programme for Government for the past 15 years, but there does not seem to be any movement on it. Bizarrely, there does not seem to be any objection to it on the Government's side. Maybe the reason it is not happening is inertia or a complete lack of interest.
I will explain the impact this has by way of illustration from one of my constituents. She was in Dublin city and was on the DCC list. She could not find anywhere to live so she moved to Balbriggan. She has now been in Balbriggan for 12 years, having spent 14 years on the DCC list. She nominated Balbriggan as one of her areas. Now she is imminently close to being housed in Dublin city, but she cannot be expected to have put her whole life on hold in the intervening time. She has had kids, she has worked in Balbriggan and her partner works in Balbriggan. She now has to choose between moving back into Dublin city, or losing those years and going onto the Fingal list, where she will stay for approximately 13 years. When will we get the social housing passport?
Comment on this
I thank the Deputy. We are working on the social housing passport and we want to do it. To an extent, it exists already in Dublin. A person can be on more than one list in Dublin but I appreciate that may not be the case-----
Comment on this
-----in this case. It makes sense to me that if people move county, or move back to their home county they are originally from, they should be able to carry the years they waited with them. However, there are safeguards we want to put in place. The Deputy will appreciate that people who have been on the housing list for a very long time - five, six, seven, eight or ten years - in Swords or Blanchardstown might not respond so well to people coming from other parts of the country and pushing them down the list. I am sure there is a way to sort it out.
Comment on this
You could just build houses, I suppose.