Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Independent) | Oireachtas source

This appears to restrict HAP to the levels of rent caps available currently. In the parts of the country where there are large waiting lists, this renders this scheme redundant, because it is essentially impossible to acquire housing at the limits set by the Department of Social Protection. That Department is in denial that this is the situation. Every one of us here today must deal with homeless people, families and children. As the Minister of State said, there are no rent caps, but she is now going to set limits. The RAS scheme did not work, on the basis of a limit of 92% of market rents, yet it is expected this scheme will work on substantially less. I do not see how it can work.

I accept there must be limits from the point of view of the Exchequer, but the limits are unrealistic as is the timeline for the review. The review should be annual, if there is to be annual budgeting for this. I do not believe the scheme has the flexibility to make it work. All this proves is that there is no cheap solution when we store up a housing crisis like the one we have. The problem is we are counting only one consequence, namely, the cost of the provision of houses. We are certainly not counting the cost of the damage being done to families, and children in particular.