Dessie Ellis (Dublin North West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I support amendment No. 22. The housing assistance payment is not a form of social housing and does not sufficiently address the housing need. It is a subsidisation of the private market. In terms of the rental accommodation scheme, RAS, and all the issues that arise in terms of trying to get that, we have seen that even though they are advertised constantly on the website people do not take rental supplement. Will the local authorities be any more successful in getting this than anyone else? We need to examine the area of rent controls, which are used in other European countries, because if the local authorities here take over the role RAS played we will inflate this even more without some form of control. That area must be examined but we seem to be avoiding that. Constitutional issues may arise in that regard but we are not getting an answer to the question about some form of rent control.