Am I entitled to any sort of free housing or HAP? I'm on 70k a year and have two dependants.

I completely agree with your sentiment, but it's not reality.

There will always be people who can't and won't work. You just have to accept them as an outlier across an employed population. You can't force these people into work, some of them would rather lie down, take drugs and die.

Ireland's unemployment rate currently sits at 4.1% as of May 2025, we're doing quite well when it comes to our level of employment versus unemployed.

A percentage of that 4.1% would also be looking for work, so in reality the real percentage of chronic dole for lifers would be even smaller.

Again, I also agree with your sentiment - but in reality, this is how ghettos are formed. Do you want there to be pockets of ghettos around Ireland with all the poor/chronically unemployed?

As an aside, the reason the junkie across the road from me has a house there is because she has two kids unfortunately. Which factors into the houses people are offered.

Most of the people in receipt of welfare can’t work. They’re:

1. Disabled sick injured unwell etc. (disability allowance or invalidity pension)
2. Too old (on pensions)
3. Taking care of tiny children alone (one parent family payment)
4. Taking care of a very sick or very old person(carers allowance)
5. Working but have children and in a low income job (working family payment)
6. An adult who was jobless but has returned to full time education.(BACK TO EDUCATION ALLOWANCE).

There aren’t huge numbers on actual jobseekers payments but I agree that there’s too many and they need to get them off it and back into work quick.
Many of the people on disability allowance aren’t that sick but they are unemployable honestly through addiction issues and mental health issues.
We can’t leave these people with no payment at all. We’d have a rough sleeper epidemic and a crime wave within weeks.
There are plenty of people on reduced amounts of these payments because they are working, perfectly legitimately, and good luck to them.
what we need is a cap on the amount of SW payment any one family can get in a week.

The junkie most likely owns the house through inheritance.

You can get a mortgage for ~300K.

They didn't steal anything from you, you paid tax.

The junkie rents the house via social housing, the owner is a landlord who gave the house over to the council under the RAS scheme.

The numbers just don't agree though.

Ireland's long term unemployment rate (Those unemployed for 12 months or more) is just 1%. The remaining 3% of unemployed people are engaging with jobseeking.

So only 1% of people eligable to work in the whole country choose not to do so and go on benefits long term. And even then, just 4% of the whole working population is actually unemployed.

I'd hardly call those figures the result of policies that incentivise idleness.

You forgot the classic “is it ok to throw glass bottles into a river”. Something tells me this thread may not be serious 🤔

You should get all your entitlements.

You also should not be a racist and you should not hate immigrants, nor should you be a hypocrite.

I make more money than you and pay a lot more tax - should I begrudge you your welfare because you're a lazy sponger milking the system? Or is it OK because you're Irish?

delete

Edit, wrong information.

At this stage, you have to consider the fact that policiticians, the establishment, the media & some of the judiciary are deliberatly conflating two completely different things on purpose. Often to their own ends & ambitions within the eu & certain circles within the states.

Legal migration of often very skilled workers who want to come, work hard, build their careers here, pay taxes, then move on or stay and make a life here are more than welcomed and accepted by irish people.

And illegal immigrants who come here on bogus asylum seeker applications (one standing out being a nigerian man with a family here, 2 kids, who left nigeria because he was bi-sexual), destroy their passports on flights, who scam the system relenlessy, use NGO charities who are funded by the goverment(irony) like focus ireland, st.vincent de paul, racism council of ireland & many others to exploit and use whatever of these parasite taxpayer funded organisations that are at their disposal to their advantage.

The funny thing in all of this is the same type of people who're vitriolically campaigning for us to take in all these so called refugees would lose most if not all of their rights if these refugees were in charge of running the country. The sheer stupidy is mindblowing

My own partner is foreign person. She also hates foreign people coming here and fuckin with the system when she herself works hard. Her own brother is even doing it. He left full time employment and went part time to get more benefits.

OP, you don't have 2 dependents, you have 1 dependent and a wife who looks after your child, that's her job and the 70k you make isn't yours, it's yours and your partners.