Mr. David Joyce:

There were a number of questions, one from Senator Grace O'Sullivan about the current system. It was a general question thrown at us as to whether the current system in Ireland is compliant in terms of human rights. It certainly is not, particularly in view of the clients we deal with and the nature of the issue of local authorities unfortunately refusing people even emergency accommodation and putting them at risk of rough sleeping, bringing children into cars and sleeping in their cars, which we have come across among our client base. Clearly, we are not compliant. Taking the entire system across the board, it is not compliant with international standards or the right to shelter and housing across the world.

What has happened to our system? What has happened to a country that had a good record of provision of social housing in times when the State did not have a lot of finances? We have created a system whereby we have become deeply reliant on the private sector without real regulation or real control of what is happening in it. As a State, we seem to be haunted by the ghost of Blake v. Attorney General, a case in the 1980s in which rent controls were found unconstitutional and any interference with private property in any way would seem to have been found unconstitutional. The two previous items of housing legislation that went through these Houses in recent years, the 2009 and 2014 Acts, have created a situation whereby local authorities, which have traditionally had a responsibility in respect of housing and in many cases performed it quite well, have been effectively disempowered, have in some cases welcomed that disempowerment and are now losing a kind of institutional ability to be housing authorities.

HAP was specifically mentioned. HAP is an absolute disaster on a number of levels. We have created a system of social housing assistance in Ireland whereby we are actually creating discrimination within the system. There is discrimination between a HAP applicant, a HAP tenant, a local authority tenant proper, shall we say, and other tenants and housing support receivers. This discrimination in itself is creating a problem. People on the payment lose their HAP supports if they go €1,000 above their income limit. Local authority tenants can go well above their income limits and their rents are assessed proportionally compared to their incomes, making it ultimately uneconomic, perhaps, for them to stay in their houses, move into the private sector or whatever. We are creating a system of injustices in various forms of social housing support and for tenants across that sector, and it is an issue that will be litigated on because it has been litigated on in other countries. I was speaking briefly earlier to my colleague from Canada. There is a well known case in Canada, the Sparks case, which looked at the inequalities across various housing supports. This will ultimately, unfortunately, end up in court. HAP is a disaster for two reasons. It took away from the local authority - the housing authority under our legislation - a responsibility to secure tenancies. It has placed an obligation on disadvantaged families in many respects and put them at the mercy of the private market without regulation and without protection.

One does not have to look too far back for a comparison. I refer to section 24 of the 2009 Act and what is known as RAS. There may on paper seem to be very little difference between RAS and HAP, but with RAS the responsibility remains with the local authority to secure and find tenancies and to ensure that applicants who are assessed and are qualified are placed in those tenancies. Perhaps this could be revisited. The other problem with HAP is, as I said, that it has taken away from local authorities their responsibility and taken away the institutional experience of managing and providing housing, which, when lost, takes a long time to rebuild, and then we create a situation whereby we are dealing with homelessness and people without shelter for the next number of years.

Another real answer - and it may seem as though we failed on this in the past - is house-building and direct provision by housing authorities. Under our legislation, local authorities are housing authorities. They have a responsibility for direct provision of housing and they need to get back to directly providing. I know from my work as a lawyer and from my colleagues that there is a level of discrimination and prejudice towards people who are social housing tenants in this country. Through my own background and my experience working with Travellers over the years, I have felt the discrimination and prejudice towards the Traveller community. We now have the same level of discrimination and prejudice towards social housing applicants on the basis that somehow they are pariahs and parasites on the State, that they are looking for something for nothing. Social housing is not free. It is not free to the tenant who lives in it, who may be working, securing employment and paying rent. They pay differential rents based on their income, and that message has been lost to the general public. The public believes that when we call on the State to build, we are somehow saying we should give out free houses and no one should have any responsibility to pay for them.

Of course, the State has some responsibility to ensure people have homes in which they can at least feel secure. That is not free. It is not free to the tenant who is quite welcoming of it. It provides security for the State not to have children living in and being born in hotels and homeless accommodation. Housing assistance payment, HAP, is an absolute disaster and needs to be revisited. It requires a simple tweak of putting the responsibility on to local authorities to ensure support continues for tenants.