Denis Naughten (Roscommon-South Leitrim, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I want to raise an issue with the Department of which I have personal experience and one which departmental officials are screaming about to have addressed but the door is being closed in their faces. Athlone has a student population which means there is limited availability of accommodation. It is equally as bad as in any other city, a point which is not recognised by the Department. The provisions being put in place in Dublin and Cork also need to be put in place for towns like Athlone where there is a significant shortage of accommodation and people are being put out on the street because they cannot get accommodation in the first place.

The specific issue I want to raise is on rent caps. The rent cap for a couple with two children in Monksland, County Roscommon, is €410. However, because the country boundary is the white line in the middle of the road, the rent cap on the County Westmeath side is €520, €110 of a difference from one side of the road to the other. The Department’s own officials have been pleading with the Department to change this rule in Athlone. It is the exact same in Ballinasloe where the rent cap in County Galway is higher than it is in County Roscommon. Again, a white line in the middle of the road is defining that. The Department is essentially telling people in County Roscommon that if they want to be on rent supplement, they can no longer live in Roscommon and must move to County Westmeath or County Galway to get accommodation. As they move geographic location, they are taken off the Roscommon local authority housing list and put on the housing list in the adjoining county. Not only is the Department telling them they cannot live in their own county, the county where they were born and reared and where their children might be going to school, but it is telling them they must permanently move outside of their own local authority area to reside in another county. The Department’s officials are pleading to have these anomalies addressed. Nothing, however, will be done because the decision has been taken that there will be no movement, even on gaping anomalies like this.

We are paying out substantial sums of money in rent allowance. The Department, however, will still not put specific provisions in place to deal with recipients engaged in anti-social behaviour. A persistent offender in a local authority tenancy will be turfed out on the street because they are causing absolute chaos in a particular community. They will still get rent allowance from the Department of Social Protection, however. They can cause absolute pandemonium in communities but the Department will say it is not its issue even though it is paying them over €500 every single month. It is not good enough that conditions will not be put on this payment. The law needs to be changed on this. The same rules that apply to local authority tenants should apply to recipients of the rent allowance scheme.