Kevin Humphreys (Dublin South East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I was involved in the Irish Water controversy. Back in November I asked parliamentary questions which were not answered. To assist the Minister in road testing the system I have resubmitted all those parliamentary questions. Depending on the fullness of the answers we can see whether the new system operates. Those questions are on their way to the Minister.
In the six target urban areas Deputy Catherine Murphy mentioned, my experience is that the vast majority of landlords are leaving the rental accommodation scheme because they can get a lot of money in the private sector. In urban areas in Dublin, Cork, Limerick and Galway there has been a major exodus. Can we examine ring-fencing that funding to target social housing? If it cannot be spent in the rental accommodation scheme we need the flexibility to shift the money into other areas to provide accommodation. Has much of the €15 million carryover of capital funding already been pre-committed?
According to page 39, more and more voluntary housing systems are being developed as the model to provide social housing, yet we are still using the RAPID programme to specify disadvantaged areas for applying for funding. The flaw in the RAPID system is that it excludes people in the rental accommodation system or in voluntary housing. Many communities are under pressure because they have people in voluntary housing. In my constituency one of the very clear examples is the Iveagh Trust. People housed by the trust are not accounted for in the RAPID system because it is not deemed to be social housing. The Iveagh Trust provides a huge number of social units in an area of deprivation in the city and has been left out of many funding projects. That whole area has been left out of targeted funding projects for deprived areas. Should we still be using a model that was designed ten or 12 years ago? Does it need to be updated?
The Minister was going to establish an expert advisory group on climate change on an ad hocbasis until we could get a statutory situation. The funding is so small it does not come into the Minister's Estimates but I would like some reassurance that it will be set up.