Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I am sorry. I thought I had. The last paragraph of the section on due diligence undertaken regarding the sourcing of accommodation states that the items reviewed included the Companies Registration Office, CRO, number, the tax clearance certificate, where relevant, insurance and fire safety documents, accessibility to amenities, the competitiveness of rates and service provision standards. Some of those elements are straightforward. There is a problem here, however, and it will emerge in future. A deep dive is not done regarding the companies to which these contracts are allocated. It may be that in some situations, for example, the directors are not the directors. On the tax clearance certificate, for example, it is possible to have the Criminal Assets Bureau, CAB, following a person. If that person makes a settlement with CAB, it will then be possible for him or her to get a tax clearance certificate. A tax clearance certificate, therefore, does not tell us much about the organisations concerned.

This is an area that is highly likely to be used by people, and in saying this, I am certainly not casting aspersions right across the board, who will take advantage of this situation. I do not believe that enough rigour is being brought to the vetting of people offering accommodation. I refer to determining who they are and undertaking background checks and things like that. It is possible for people to comply with the tax clearance certificate requirement and have a CRO number but also have other things that would make them entirely unsuitable to be involved in providing accommodation. I am not happy that there is the kind of rigour needed here. We are talking about very vulnerable people being put into situations. I think this will cause a problem in future. I suggest we write to the Department to express our observation that there is insufficient rigour in this regard.