Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Landlords who signed up to RAS are now withdrawing from it. The latter is much more advantageous than the HAP scheme in that it involves 92% of the market rents. I do not know which landlords are going to rush to sign up to the HAP scheme in the first instance, particularly as it will be less advantageous than RAS from the point of view of the income they will receive. There are many aspects to what is proposed which, in theory, are correct. However, difficulties are going to arise both in the context of the number of landlords who sign up to the scheme and the amount of money that will be available in the form of rent paid.

I completely agree with the point Deputy Cowen made with regard to people being removed from housing waiting lists. At present, and as already stated, landlords are withdrawing from RAS. This means that certain families who thought they would be able to remain in the same location for five or then years are on the verge of being homeless and councils are being obliged to find alternative accommodation for them. Reference is continually made to Irish people wanting to buy houses but there is an extremely large cohort of individuals who, as a result of their income levels, do not fall into that category. Those who surrender their local authority houses and enter RAS find themselves in a very precarious situation because of a lack of available accommodation. If there are no guarantees for these people, then they are in trouble. In the context of the waiting list, they are being placed ahead of those who are homeless because local authorities gave them a commitment and they now feel a sense of obligation to them.

This is an exercise in massaging figures rather than dealing with a housing need where people can believe they have a home rather than a temporary arrangement that meets their needs temporarily. We must see this as somebody's home rather than somebody else's property that the local authority will rent temporarily. That may be fine in terms of crisis management or for a small cohort of the people on the waiting lists, but they should not be removed from the permanency a local authority house would give them.