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

I would like to underline that point. The rent caps do not work in large parts of this city and in other large urban centres. Currently, local authorities are breaching the caps, but they are denying that right to individuals in receipt of rent allowance. The council housing departments know the rent caps are unworkable and they are being forced into private arrangements with private landlords who say they are upping rents or pulling out of the RAS scheme. Therefore, local authorities are breaching caps and must do so to avoid evicting people in RAS schemes who are deemed to be housed. They do this because they have a duty of care to them. This is an issue we must address. What is the duty of care in a HAP or RAS scheme? The local authorities are breaching the caps because they know the caps are unworkable, yet the Minister of State seems to be stitching caps into the legislation. This will not work.

If the logic of this is to ensure that we do not have a runaway train in terms of costs for housing, let me point out that it is costing us more to put people up in hotels than to breach the rent caps or, in the long term, build a council house. I heard from an official in the housing department in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown that it costs €800 a week to put somebody in a hotel. This amounts to €3,200 a month, while the rent cap for that person is €975. This is crazy.