Kathleen Funchion on rents 'beyond crisis' and fuel hardship
Kathleen Funchion spoke about escalating rental hardship, gaps in housing supports and fuel costs and urged urgent action. She recounted individual cases from her clinics and warned that many people do not qualify for existing supports such as HAP or fuel allowance.
Rents and housing availability
She told of two people from clinics in Kilkenny City and Bagnellstown in Carlow facing imminent homelessness, and said availability is extremely limited with around ten properties in Kilkenny and nine in Carlow at the moment.
HAP and people left without supports
She highlighted the inadequacy of HAP for many renters, noting the example of a single person entitled to 490 HAP who cannot compete for properties listed between €1,100 and €1,500. She stressed that not everyone qualifies for HAP and many people suffering do not qualify for any supports.
Fuel allowance and vulnerable households
She raised concern over fuel costs and said many, particularly older people, are under pressure and worry about heating. She suggested expanding eligibility, mentioning people on the work and family payment as an example of those who should be considered for inclusion.
Retrofitting grants and scheme delays
She criticised current retrofitting grants as not fit for purpose, saying many applicants lack necessary funds and pointing to the SEIA waiting list of around a year or more. She argued that schemes need common sense reform to reduce costs for households and meet climate objectives.
Call for urgent action
Throughout the contribution she called for urgency on rental policy, fuel supports and retrofit schemes and closed by noting time constraints before handing over to Deputy Quinlan.
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Yes, thanks very much Cahirleach, I have two and a half minutes so I will be brief, I want to mention the issue of rents and obviously loads of people have mentioned that but it really is, I don't even like to use the word crisis point because it has gone beyond that nearly at this stage, but just both yesterday in the two clinics that I run, one in Kilkenny City and one in Bagnellstown which is in Carlow, I had an individual in each, one actually due to be out of their property this Saturday and one in the next two months and just absolutely no hope of being able to find anything at all and it's really, really so difficult and it's really difficult even to know what to say to people sometimes in this situation because you know you're saying have you applied to various landlords or anything that might be coming up and everybody's applying to everything and at the moment there's ten properties in the whole of Kilkenny and nine in the whole of Carlow and then you put into a situation where people are entitled to HAP, for example if you're a single person 490 HAP is what you're entitled to, like you haven't a whole up of reaching some of these properties listed at between €1,100 and €1,500 in some cases, so we really, really do need urgency in relation to the rental and it's not everyone that qualifies for HAP and I want to make that point too, there's a lot of people in real difficulty that don't qualify for any supports. I want to mention the fuel allowance as well because this is a major, major issue in relation to the costs of living and so many people we have seen, particularly elderly people, who should be not worried about the the costs of heating are really, really under pressure and there's an awful lot of people that don't qualify for fuel allowance and I want to mention that in particular too and one of our suggestions was to include people who are on the work and family payment for example and I think we need to look at that in the longer term as well I think we need to look at the issue of retrofitting, I know this will be a debate later this week in this chamber but I just want to make the point while I have the opportunity that a lot of the grants that are out there are not fit for purpose people don't have the balance of the funds and I think the SEIA have a waiting list of around a year or over a year at the moment which is crazy for people so some of the schemes they really, there's no common sense in them and they need to really be fit for a purpose and that's what we should be looking at if we want to long term reduce costs for people and also if we really are serious about the climate, they're the kind of schemes that we need to be looking at. I'll finish there because I know we're short on time. Deputy Quinlan.
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