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

As I mentioned to the Minister of State and the Minister, Deputy Kelly, when leaving the earlier session, I would like an instruction to be given to all local authorities to the effect that the eligibility criteria for any of the schemes designed to keep people in homes or get them into homes if they are on the housing list or homeless should be relaxed and there should be flexibility. Too often, in the context of a series of issues - including HAP, RAS and other schemes - officials are operating to the letter of the law which is what they understand they have to do. They would be worried if they did anything other than respect the letter of the law because they might get rapped over the knuckles by the Department for doing so. This leads to a bureaucratic stupidity which is no individual's fault. There is a need for an instruction from the top to the effect that people should be flexible. Obviously, if they are going outside particular eligibility criteria, they should note that and if that is subsequently perceived to be a problem, it could be addressed. However, we need more flexibility and, in the first instance, people need to be encouraged to be flexible and not say, "You don't quite tick all the boxes here, therefore you can't go for this scheme."

We are dealing with a case at the moment of a couple who are working whose landlord proposes to increase the rent from €1,000 to €1,200. They cannot afford that and will become homeless. However, their landlord says he would be interested in doing RAS but because they are working, they are not eligible for RAS so they will be put out of their home. HAPS is not operational in Dún Laoghaire for some odd reason, because it is a pilot. It should be bloody well brought in everywhere - I do not like it but we should at least have a level playing field. There must be flexibility. The official in that situation needs to say: "We can stop these people becoming homeless here by making a dispensation to keep them in their home." I will give another example of where flexibility is needed of a situation where a landlord is selling the property, even though he is very happy with the tenants who have always payed their rent. He does not want to put these people out on the street, this message is passed via the tenants to me and to the council. He tells the council he would like to sell the house back to keep these people in their home rather than allow the property to go on the free market. That is very nice of the landlord, a lot of people would not do that, but he is told it cannot be done because authorisation is needed.

The policy must be to get people into houses or prevent them from being evicted, whatever that takes. The mortgage to rent scheme - where people are in arrears and the banks are supposed to offer them a suite of options to keep them in their homes - would have been helpful to many people on low income. There has been a spectacular failure in the delivery of this scheme for reasons I do not fully understand. A policy should be introduced where people are automatically put on the mortgage to rent scheme rather than evicted. Resources should be provided to local authorities to buy those houses to prevent evictions and the properties rented back to people. That would take the pressure off the thousands of people currently afraid they will lose their homes and be placed on council lists or in homelessness services anyway.

On modular housing, what guarantees can the Minister provide that short term will not become long term? I am very sceptical about this move. I do not want to be obstructive to any measure that would solve an emergency but I am deeply worried, as I think many people are, that this will become a long-term solution. The Minister initially referred to a figure of six months but what happens to a tenant after six months? Will tenants and families have key workers assigned to them during that period to assist them to get housed, one way or another, through local authority schemes, HAP or whatever?

On NAMA hotels, a suggestion has been made that these would be reconfigured and redesigned to provide emergency accommodation. Has the Minister examined whether this could be a better, faster, more appropriate option than modular housing?

These hotels are currently unsuitable but if work on them could be done within a six month period - we are talking about a lead-in time of six months or longer for the modular housing - would it not be more appropriate to reconfigure them to provide the emergency short-term accommodation we need to alleviate the crisis?