George Lawlor condemns 'catastrophic' housing failure in County Wexford

Minister, the current housing crisis in this country can only be described as a catastrophic failure of leadership and policy, leaving countless families in despair and homelessness while developers and landlords profit from the misery. This government's inaction and ineffective measures have turned the dream of so many of getting a social house, or indeed home ownership, into a cruel joke. In my own County of Wexford, Minister, as of yesterday there were 2,818 households on the housing list. That's households, not individual people and the response of this government can only be described as ambitious. In fact, in the recent announcement for social housing across the country, Minister Brown declared that the reason there was no allocation for Wexford was effectively they were doing grand, they were meeting their targets. Now the targets for County Wexford, with nearly 3,000 households languishing on the housing list, is 189 homes for 2025 and 193 social homes for 2026. Absolute paltry numbers when you consider the numbers of families crying out for a roof over their heads, crying out for a place to call a home for life and crying out for security of tenure. Of course the real figures of the housing crisis are completely masked by the fact that so many hard-working families and individuals are prevented from accessing the housing list in the first place because of the insulting income thresholds. Let me give you an example of the reality in my County, the ridiculous reality. A couple both earning just the minimum wage are prevented from accessing social housing supports or going on the housing list in County Wexford because they are deemed to be in excess of the threshold. In fact well in excess of the threshold preventing them from receiving any assistance, both earning the minimum wage and deemed to be earning too much. And what happens to these hard-working people who happen to have a job? They are forced into the private rental market and in many cases condemned to poverty as a result. They are forced to pay thousands of euro every year in rent to the private sector because their low wages are deemed to be too high. These people are pronged not only to despair but into poverty as a result of the policies that have been foisted on them by this government and the previous government when it comes to the provision of social housing in this country. These people have simply no hope of ever accessing either a social house or indeed purchasing one themselves despite the fact that they go out day in day out working hard to keep food on the table and a roof over their heads. Let me give you a real-life example of the damage your government's policies are doing. A family I and my office are working with, a husband and wife with three children with additional needs, forced to leave their home last year and into a 30-year-old damp mobile home just outside Wexford Town. Their crime? He was a hard-working father with a wage to put them 625 euros above your ridiculously low thresholds. That's the real-life results of the policies of this government and how they have devastating impacts on hard-working families. It simply has to stop. stop. stop. stop. stop. stop. stop.