Kieran O'Donnell (Limerick City, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I take Ms O'Donoghue's point about the principal officers. For the general public and for the vast majority of people who are claiming social welfare in the normal way, it does them a disservice. There is a perception that we have not got to grips with fraud. I would like to hear someone on the airwaves from the Department of Social Protection at assistant secretary level, who is heading up fraud, saying it is great if people are complying with the terms laid down.

However, side by side with the ordinary person who is on basic social welfare and who is barely getting by, there is an abuse of the system in various areas. Where people engage in anti-social behaviour and move from house to house, through rent supplement, and terrorise neighbours, that is an abuse of the system and it must be stopped. I would have thought the wherewithal was in Ms O'Donoghue's Department.

The CWOs do great work on the ground but they are curtailed in what they can do. I have brought this up before and I will do so again. When one gets a representation that there is a problem with a particular house, the occupant of which is in receipt of rent supplement, the Department could bring in the person and contact the landlord to ask what is going on. If the gardaí have been called, account could be taken of that and the rent supplement could be withdrawn until such time as the person agrees to normal standards of behaviour. I do not think that is too much to ask. Perhaps I am different from other colleagues, but I am hearing that it is an ongoing problem and that it never seems to go away. With a small amount of goodwill and effort by the Department at local level, in terms of the procedural rules, it would make a difference to the operation of the rent supplement scheme on the ground for a tiny cohort but it would have major positive ramifications for people living in those areas. Will Ms O'Donoghue look into that matter?

It is something about which I feel strongly because it comes up so often. Side by side with that is the extremely important matter of ensuring landlords are not letting houses under the rent supplement scheme which are hugely substandard. Once again, there is a commonality between the landlords and the tenants. The same landlords crop up as do the same tenants. It is just too frequent. If I ignored this issue I would not be doing my job as a public representative. Will Ms O'Donoghue look at putting-----