Rose Conway-Walsh Demands Reversal of Mayo Housing Cuts

Did the Cabinet sign off on the £430,000 salary associated with the Strategic Housing Office today? Because people in Mayo want to know that, and people across the country who cannot access housing are paying exorbitant rents. Almost half a million salary for a role which should not be necessary if the Government had stuck to its housing projections and implemented recommendations of the Housing Commission report. Earlier this month I wrote to Mayo County Council seeking information about a number of social housing acquisitions in 2024, but in Mayo there has been a cut of 63% to funding for new applications for social housing acquisitions. This is a real impact on people's lives and there are 13 tenant in situ acquisitions paused at the end of 2024. I am working with a woman at the moment whose landlord is selling the house and she has lived in it for the past seven years. This mother is living with a brain condition and her nine-year-old daughter, and they are both facing homelessness. But because of the restrictions in Mayo County Council, they can no longer purchase our home under the tenant in situ scheme. In her own words she said, Taoiseach, we have nowhere to go, and the best that the County Council can offer them is emergency accommodation. I am asking you to reverse the cuts and I am asking you to reverse the severe restrictions to the tenant in situ scheme. Thank you. The outgoing Government built more social houses than built since the 1970s in the last four years. That is a fact. Up to 48,000 social houses built. Nothing compares with that in the previous 15 or 20 years. You keep on shouting, Deputy, you keep coming forward with facile, superficial analysis of the housing crisis. You set yourself up as a housing expert. You are nothing of the sort. You are not. So I would appreciate now if you just allow other people to give their perspective. The only reason I raised my eyes, I thought it was wrong of you to personalise it and demonise an individual who cannot defend themselves in this House, and to make the assertions you have made about someone who has not been nominated to any position by Government, no decision has been taken, but you choose to take a cheap shot at an individual, blaming that person for all the evictions that have happened in the last 10 or 15 years. That was wrong. That is all I am saying. I do not think that is good enough either. We are all entitled to have different perspectives on the housing problem, but let us not demonise individuals for the sake of a cheap political score. I want to make the point that we have built close. Deputy, you have had your question. You have set yourself up, and you are entitled to be. You are out of order, Deputy. You are not a construction and housing expert. You never have been. Deputy, you are a lecturer in social policy. I believe you are a good lecturer in social policy. Deputy, you are a good lecturer in social policy. That does not make you a housing expert, Deputy. Deputy, you have created it. It was good for the electoral pathway. Deputy, I will ask you to please observe the rules of the House and allow the authorities to answer the questions that he has been asked. You have had your opportunity. I could say that in terms of social housing, there has been a very significant step change made. Last year, over 10,000 social houses delivered. Over 48,000 social houses added to the social housing stock since 2020. Now we need to do more. And we need to build more social houses. The tenant in situ scheme only came in in 2023. And all the deputies have correctly raised that. There was no tenant in situ scheme before 2023. None. And substantial progress was made in respect of it. About 1,000 of those in 2023. About 1,800 social homes were acquired in 2023. And 1,000 of those were for properties where tenants received a notice of termination. And again, in 2024, over 1,000 were received in respect of a notice of termination that we bought on the tenant in situ. And 325 million has been applied this year to local authorities. Now, there was an issue in terms of how there's a sense in an examination of the application of tenants in situ across the country that it wasn't all being used for those for whom it was designed, i.e. people in immediate need or potential people going into homelessness because of the ending or termination of a tenancy. And there was some evidence that it has incentivised acquisitions, secondhand acquisitions, more broadly than was intended. And so the scheme has been refined with a view to trying to get the local authorities to focus very specifically on those in immediate need of homelessness. Not as a way out maybe for some landlords to sell their houses expeditiously to a local authority. And we have to get the balance right in terms of new bills and acquisitions as well, because we had other deputies earlier in the day referencing, for example, the fact that in one city in Limerick apparently that approved housing bodies were purchasing 60% of their stock as opposed to new bills. Now, the balance has to be got right in that respect. Thanks.