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

I welcome everyone. We have a housing crisis. Rented properties are a massive issue. We have a lack of supply. We are trying to bring in a system to help people. There are cases in my area where landlords will not take housing assistance payment, HAP. They take cash. Since we have a lack of supply, we force people, since they cannot find proper accommodation, into homes where the landlord will not take the HAP. Mr. Michael Walsh said that it should be getting better with current rental policies. I do not see it because there is no joined-up thinking between organisations, and we have a dilemma.

The figures here relate to funding to local authorities for inspections. Since 2004, the Residential Tenancies Board, RTB, has been providing funding for local authorities through the Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government. There is over €34.5 million, with €1.7 million provided in 2017. There are 31 local authorities. I ask for the facts, figures and breakdowns of who got what and what accountability there is for every local authority. How many inspections and enforcement proceedings happened? There were none. I do not blame anyone here for this but the biggest issue is staffing. Most local authorities are under much pressure with staffing. I hate the summer because every time the summer comes, through no fault of the local authorities, if someone is on holiday, they are lucky to get someone who will do that work as well as their own. They could be trying to do three jobs and they do a great job. I am not blaming the local authority staff. We have excellent staff. It is a problem across all 31 local authorities. I can speak for my own local authority in Carlow. It is understaffed. Can we have accountability in respect of that money? I see that provision has been made for allocation of €2.5 million in 2018 with further increases proposed up to 2021. The Department issued a letter to all the local authorities on 5 February. The letter set out annual targets and requests each local authority to prepare an implementation plan to achieve this, including staffing, resource and other needs. Will the witnesses be accountable about this? Will every local authority come back to them? I understand that each local authority is different, gets different funding, has a different system and has its own book relating to tenants and private landlords. I know that the Minister, Deputy Eoghan Murphy, is having a summit relating to-----