BBC Spotlight Exposes Social Housing Scandal

Homeless families in Northern Ireland are unable to find a place to live as a result of benefit fraud, according to a new investigation by the BBC's Spotlight programme.

The programme claims thousands of houses are being sublet illegally or used as addresses through which benefits can be accessed.

The BBC says 40,000 households in Northern Ireland are on the social housing waiting list, and 10,000 families are officially listed as homeless.

BBC Spotlight reporter Enda McClafferty said: "Tenancy fraud is the biggest council fraud in England and Wales costing £1.8bn, yet officially it didn't exist here.

"There has never been a single case of tenancy fraud reported in Northern Ireland, in other words 'dole drops' didn't exist. We challenge the Housing Executive on why it has only now come up with a plan to deal with a fraud which has been around for decades."

The BBC says a family from Castlerock that has moved 13 times in 12 years told Spotlight that they are desperate to find a home and have to move again next month.

Darran Keenan told the programme: "I've been in begging. I've even been round farmhouses begging farmers to let me live in their old abandoned houses just to have a home for my family."

BBC Spotlight also found that 60% of private rented properties in Northern Ireland are paid for by the taxpayer through housing benefit. The equivalent figure is 25% in England.

It said some 1,800 people in Northern Ireland have been given new homes in the past five years because they claimed they were threatened by paramilitaries.

BBC Spotlight Housing Fraud: Hidden Scandal will be broadcast on BBC One Northern Ireland this evening, Tuesday 11 March at 22:35.

(IT)