Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I take the point that there are many amendments to get through but this is a key one. I agree, as I am sure does almost everybody here, that streamlining areas under the local authority makes sense. There are many positive aspects to that move but suggesting that an interim or temporary solution is permanent and that being in a HAP arrangement is the same as getting a council house is wrong. Tenants do not see it that way. Objectively, that is not the case because the tenant is dealing with a private landlord. A private landlord can pull out of the arrangement or may not maintain the house to the same standard required of a local authority. I have some advice for anybody in a HAP or RAS scheme. They should take photographs of the inside of the house as soon as they move in because in two or three years' time they may find that the landlord will blame them for problems in the house which are to do with their failure to maintain the house. Those are serious issues that have arisen. The Minister should probably include in the Bill that it shall be deemed an interim form of social housing but it must be distinguished from getting a council house because it is not the same. There will be murder if people are taken off the housing list.