Affordable housing

Sir, – It is getting truly painful reading reports on how our esteemed elected representatives contort themselves as they appear to be trying to deal with the homelessness crisis ("Dublin councils to vote on affordable housing scheme", News, May 13th).

Aside from the extraordinary criteria list to “qualify” for assistance under the scheme referred to, this “affordable housing scheme” is discriminatory in that it will lavish a grant, equivalent to 40 per cent discount of the price of a home, on only a small, chosen group of citizens whose income debars them from social housing.

Is it not obvious that the fair and just way to tackle this specific problem is to change the social housing eligibility criteria so as to ensure that all those whose income is inadequate to buy on the private market can access council housing lists so at least they can look forward to having their housing needs met at some point in the future? And having done that – and here’s the important bit – build the necessary social housing to meet the real need.

This isn’t rocket science – unless of course a large dollop of ideology is allowed to cloud the issue. – Yours, etc,

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JIM O’SULLIVAN,

Rathedmond,

Sligo.