Patrick Nulty (Dublin West, Independent)
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I thank the Chairman for allowing me to contribute to this discussion. I also thank the officials from the Department, Ms Helen Faughnan and her team, for their input. Everybody present would probably agree that the long-term solution to this problem is the provision of social housing, but, unfortunately, the State has failed to provide it. While rent allowance may, in theory, be a short-term support, in practice it is an integral part of housing policy.

I, too, will comment on top-up payments. I have spoken to community welfare officers who tell me that they know when signing off on rent forms, the rent is a fiction. They are trying to keep families in their homes. Tenants must renegotiate their rents each year, year in year out, and if they do not succeed in negotiating downwards and remaining in their homes, they must take their children out of school and uproot themselves from the neighbourhood and neighbours with whom they have built links. It is Orwellian to suggest there is no evidence of top-up payments being made; no one can accept this. I am sure members recognise that top-up payments are rife in the system.

I will comment on rent caps. My colleague, Deputy Brendan Ryan, mentioned Fingal. I am using it as an example because I know it and the Dublin 15 area best. This morning I looked at the properties available for the different categories under the caps. For a family with two children, I found three properties; for a single adult, I found one property; and for a family with three children, I found two properties. There is a disconnect between the prevailing market rate for houses and the rate at which the cap is set. The availability of properties for renting in Dublin is at its lowest level since 2007 according to daft.ie. There is no relationship between demand and supply. In addition, recent legislation was introduced to govern bedsits and the quality of private rented accommodation. In the Dublin area the differential for a single person in contrast to a couple, both with no children, ranges from €175 to €225, yet these two household units are competing for the same properties. The only rationale for the differential is that it was assumed that single people would move into bedsits, but that is no longer the case. Have the departmental officials recognised that the cap for a single person in the Dublin area must be increased significantly if he or she is to access housing?

The take-up of the rental accommodation scheme, RAS, has been moderate at best and poor in practice. One of the commitments in the programme for Government was to reduce the criterion in respect of eligibility to six months to move to the RAS. I have tabled parliamentary questions on this issue and the response from the Department is that this will not be done. Will the officials confirm that one will be able to move to the RAS after six months and, if not, why not? Is the programme for Government wrong or is the response from the Department wrong? A very clear commitment was made in the programme for Government that the criterion in respect of eligibility would be reduced to six months. NGOs have been campaigning on the issue for three or four years.

Senator Marie Moloney raised the question of the exceptional needs payment. I have come across cases - I do not like to use individual cases, but they illustrate the point - of women who experience domestic violence and have had property damaged in incredibly difficult circumstances. The landlord refuses to return the deposit and they must go through the ordeal of going to the PRTB and a very long process to get the deposit back. They have encountered major difficulties in getting the money for another deposit together. That is what is happening in practice.

While I appreciate the report, it is Orwellian when compared with the experiences of individuals, often on very low incomes, who are seeking or are in receipt of rent supplement and trying to access supports.