Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Independent) | Oireachtas source

By auctioneers and so on. Some auctioneers will say part of the reason they do not encourage people to engage in RAS or rent assistance is due to the red tape involved. Therefore, the schemes need to be simplified.

The number of people on waiting lists differs from area to area, as do the staffing ratios in local authorities. Some authorities have the ability to deal with an additional workload while some are at the bare bones in terms of staff. The embargo has been a very blunt instrument from that point of view. The staffing ratio is an important issue.

The Minister outlined the make-up of waiting lists, which I was aware of, but I wish to caution against something. It can be very bad value to build a lot of one bedroom houses, as it can lead to less flexibility. Someone may live on his or her own but later on in life he or she may need a carer or someone similar in the house. Therefore, it is important that we have correct housing provision.

In terms of approved housing bodies, I have some good experiences and some not-so-good experiences. The Minister is right: we have a large number of small bodies and there is a bit of cherry-picking. In my experience, quite a bit of cherry-picking takes place. We should look at the way this is handled in other European countries where the likes of the European Investment Bank act as co-funders. When the housing associations met the committee they talked about the need to have a co-guarantee with Government because they are charities. I hope this issue will be addressed because a very large amount of money could be leveraged. I hope there will be a mixture of tenure and renters in some of the schemes developed, because renting must be an option into the future. For a cohort of people, renting is about security of tenure and affordability of rents, but it is not the same issue for every group of people. I hope we will adopt a more European approach to renting because it will be increasingly difficult for people to purchase homes due to restrictions that have been placed on mortgages and also because a lot of people live on fairly low incomes.

I wish to mention a number of specific issues.