Jennifer Murnane O'Connor (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I have three or four questions. The first relates to the local authorities. I am glad the Minister has commented on the part they play. My issue is that most people are becoming homeless because of the criteria from the Department. I will set out some examples. This needs to be looked at. Let us consider my area of Carlow and what is needed to qualify to go on the local authority housing list. If a person earns more than €27,500, he or she does not go on the housing list. Our neighbouring counties have eligibility limits of €32,000 and €33,000. We now have a predicament. People are coming to us who do not meet the criteria for the local authority housing list. They are falling out of the loop. I then bring them for a mortgage because, as we know, to qualify for a local authority mortgage, a person has to get refusal from a bank and a building society. They do not qualify for that because they are not earning enough. Now we have a situation where a local authority is making people homeless. These people do not qualify for the local authority housing list because they are barely over the criteria and there is no hardship clause. I spoke to a couple recently who earn €28,500. They did not qualify to go on the list because they were €1,000 over and they did not get a mortgage. This is making people homeless. Unless the Minister addresses the immediate criteria to help people to get on the housing list, we are going to have homelessness.

There is another issue. Recently, the housing assistance payment, HAP, scheme has come into being. In fairness, I think the HAP scheme is quite good in the sense that people are getting rent allowance. There is considerable confusion and there needs to be further education on this. There is considerable confusion between the HAP scheme and the rental accommodation scheme. HAP is a good scheme and people will get their rent allowance. However, the problem is people are going on the HAP scheme now and the landlord is upping the rent. Therefore, we have people who are getting extra money on the HAP scheme because they are entitled to it, but there is also the landlord. We need to put something in place to stop the landlords from hiking the rent. It is not helping the people who are renting.

When assessments are done under the HAP scheme, it means people waiting to get their interviews to go on the local authority housing list fall behind. When all these schemes are put in place, are extra staff given to local authorities in order that there is no backing-up of people waiting for interview to go on the local authority lists? In fairness to the staff, they are now going through a new assessment of HAP. They have to do that. However, people are not being interviewed to go on housing waiting lists because there are not enough staff. These are small things but they are massive in terms of keeping things progressing. I want to know the position. When the Minister puts such a scheme in place, does he give local authorities extra staff to deal with the queue of people waiting to have their needs assessed? It is not happening.

At the time this scheme was introduced, we had the rental accommodation scheme, RAS. This is where confusion arises. Anyone involved in the housing assistance payment, HAP, knows that those on RAS were taken off the local authority housing list. Anyone now on rent allowance must go on HAP and are told they are being removed from the housing list. Those who were on RAS before 2011 have been told they do not qualify to get back on the housing list. We are making them homeless. We need to examine these issues. They are small issues but people are being left homeless. They are on RAS but do not qualify for the local authority list and they do not qualify for a mortgage.

People whose houses are in the process of being repossessed, through no fault of their own, cannot go on the housing list because their name is on a house. These people have no home because the banks have taken it, but they do not qualify for the local authority housing list. The paperwork can take up to two or three years, but the local authority tells them they do not qualify for the housing list because their name is on a house. The people have letters from solicitors but they are not allowed on the local authority housing list. These issues are not being taken into account and it is making people homeless.

I understand what has been said about the planning for 100 houses, which I welcome because it is a good initiative, but the Department must do its homework with the local authorities whereby people can qualify for the housing list, people are helped to get mortgages and help is given to those who do not qualify for the housing list because their name is on a house even though they do not actually have it. This needs to be examined, as does RAS. People who have been taken off the housing list should be put back on it. They are panicking. This is urgent.

Another element of the policy I do not understand is with regard to people who are on the housing list of one local authority area but move to another local authority area. For example, people on the Kildare list moving to Carlow are almost told they cannot live in the new area. They are asked what is their need to live in Carlow and why they want to live there. It is almost as though people must need to live in an area. If people choose to be in an area they should be allowed to be there. If they qualify for rent allowance in Kildare they will get it in Carlow. The difference is that the amount of rent allowance in Carlow is much lower than in other authority areas. That needs to be examined.

Many elements in this area have been totally forgotten. Unless the new plan is changed, the Minister will make the normal person homeless, and that is part of the problem.