Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I, along with other committee members, have raised the top-up or under-the-counter payments with the Minister on several occasions. The answer I usually get is that the Department has no record of this being a wide-scale practice. It might not have records of it because the clients paying this top-up payment do not want to come forward as they are afraid of losing an apartment or a house they have managed to secure despite the shortage. They will only complain to Deputies or councillors at constituency clinics.

This practice has got much worse in recent years, given the shortage of properties available, particularly in Dublin. The only solution, which I have suggested to the Minister, is that rent supplement and housing assistance payments be paid directly to the landlord. I understand changes are due to be made to the rent supplement scheme and the housing assistance payments, but if the Department has any influence, it should ensure those payments are made directly to landlords. There would be several advantages in doing this. First, it would cut out the top-up payments. Second, it would ensure the landlord gets the money and it is not abused like in the case of a chaotic drug user who would be tempted by having the rent cheque in their pocket. Third, it would also facilitate the registration and legal compliance of landlords.

When the changes were made to the maximum rent limits, the Department stated an analysis was done. Other members mentioned Killarney and Galway, where there are also high rents, but in Dublin, which I know best, the new maximum rent limits did not reflect what was happening on the ground in any shape or form. It has contributed to chaos for many people. I am not one who wants to subsidise private landlords as I believe the State should be putting most of this money into building social housing. I am not suggesting we should give private landlords more than they deserve, but the Department claims it was trying not to distort the market. In some ways, it was distorting it downwards with many landlords opting out of making their properties available to social welfare recipients. This, in turn, contributed to fewer properties being available to rent. If one wants proof of how few properties are available at present, Dublin City Council now cannot source properties for the rental accommodation scheme. It is dire and has forced many people into chaos. Hopefully, the Department will have seen sense and when it is analysing the figures again, it will move the maximum rent limit upwards for a temporary period until the housing assistance payment is introduced, which will be a significant change. Does the Department have any details of when the housing assistance payment scheme will be introduced? What areas have been suggested as pilot schemes and for how long will they go on?

I know of some cases where people have had difficulties in getting deposits back. In some cases where the landlord’s property has been foreclosed on by the banks, the tenant’s deposit has been lost. It is with the bank.

We are finding more and more of that. One will find that when all of these buy-to-let properties are being repossessed by the banks in the next year or so that the deposit disappears with them because the tenant is the smallest creditor. I urge the Department to be aware of that and to be aware when people come looking for a second deposit that they lost the initial one through no fault of their own. The suggestion made regarding a guarantee might be a quicker way of dealing with it and might progress rent allowance applications more quickly.