People trying to get on the property ladder in Monaghan are being hampered by government policy.
In addition to rising rents, which leave it difficult for people in this region to save for a mortgage deposit, local families can't get on the social housing list because income thresholds set by the government are too low in households where two people are working. That's according to Monaghan Sinn Fein TD Matt Carthy who questioned all these policies during a Dáil motion on housing this week. In an earlier debate, Deputy Carthy was told Monaghan County Council does not have an affordable housing delivery target because the Department of Housing had established the "level of affordably constrained need is not high" here.
This week, the local TD referred to the newly-published report by the Housing Commission which also criticised the government's handling of the crisis: "They accused the Government of the failure to treat housing as the critical social and economic priority," Deputy Carthy said of the Commission's report, " And that, of course, is the lived reality of people in County Monaghan who cannot get on the the social housing waiting list because the Government's income thresholds are too low for any working couple who cannot avail of the affordable housing scheme because the Government has provided exactly zero affordable homes in County Monaghan."
