Rebecca Moynihan (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I am not going to ask particular questions but want to give some feedback on the scheme. The tenant in situscheme is great. It operated in Dublin city for a number of years. If somebody is at risk of homelessness, we can go to the acquisitions section and fill in its representatives. They have been quite responsive. However, the scheme is patchy around the country. Dublin city has a head start on some of the other local authorities. Issues arise. Has guidance been given to local authorities where people are entitled to a certain type of house or household under the social housing list but the house they are in does not satisfy the criteria? For example, people might be entitled to a three-bedroom home but the house they are in has two bedrooms.The alternative might be their going into homelessness. Can they still go onto the transfer list? That is slowing up the process.

Do we have an idea of the number of cases where local authorities inspect a property and decide not to purchase it, and what the reasons are? At a very early stage of the scheme becoming national, I had a mother who was at risk of homelessness and the inspector said that under no circumstances was the local authority to buy the house in question because an attic was converted. It was not counted on the basis of the number of bedrooms that were in the house. The local authority said no because it would be unable to stand over anything that happened in the attic. Such issues arise. Has guidance been given to local authorities in that regard? Is there some flexibility? I will leave it at that.