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

If one takes my area, and I am sure it is true also of other areas, it is virtually impossible for somebody who lives in Dún Laoghaire to find somewhere to rent that takes rent supplement. I accept that most people want to stay in the area in which they are living and where their children go to school. One might get one or two places available and several hundred people in a month chasing those one or two places. In an ideal world, they would find somewhere close by but often they have to go further, for example, to Little Bray or into Bray, which is administratively under the jurisdiction of Wicklow County Council. Boundary issues arise in terms of people being told they are not the problem of the local authority area in which they are seeking accommodation. That is crazy. People might be reluctant to go to Bray but if they can get somewhere and they are happy with that, then there should not be any issue about them being able to get rent allowance in whatever area they can find accommodation. Such flexibility should be available. If a person is willing to move to an area where he or she might have some prospect of getting somewhere close to the rent allowance limit and there is a slightly higher likelihood of rent allowance acceptance, for example, on the edge of the city such as Tallaght, it should be possible to do that. Understandably, many people do not want to go there but others might accept it and then boundary issues arise. Maximum flexibility should be provided given the mess in terms of trying to find rental accommodation that will accept rent allowance. Instructions should be given to community welfare officers to exercise the maximum flexibility and not to say "No" on the basis of administrative demarcation lines. I wonder what the situation is in that regard.