Joanna Tuffy (Dublin Mid West, Labour)
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We will now discuss issues pertaining to rent supplement. I draw witnesses' attention to the fact that, by virtue of 17(2)(l) of the Defamation Act 2009, witnesses are protected by absolute privilege in respect of their evidence to this committee. However, if they are directed by the committee to cease giving evidence on a particular matter and they continue to do so, they are entitled thereafter only to a qualified privilege in respect of their evidence. They are directed that only evidence connected with the subject matter of these proceedings is to be given and asked to respect the parliamentary practice to the effect that, where possible, they should not criticise or make charges against a person, persons or entity by name or in such a way as to make him, her or it identifiable. Their opening statements will be published on the committee website later today.

Members are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice to the effect that they should not comment on, criticise or make charges against a person outside the Houses or an official by name or in such a way as to make him or her identifiable. Mobile telephones must be switched off completely or switched to safe or flight mode, as they could otherwise interfere with the broadcasting services.

Rent supplement comes within the remit of this committee. It is paid by the Department of Social Protection to the lowest-income households to help them meet the cost of housing. A total of 71,500 households, including 24,000 in Dublin, are in receipt of rent supplement. It is one of a number of measures aimed at addressing housing issues. A number of households have transferred from rent supplement to the housing assistance payment, and a further 6,000 households are on the rental assistance scheme.

To assist our consideration of rent supplement, we are joined by Mr. Pat Doyle and Mr. Brian Friel from the Peter McVerry Trust; Mr. Ashley Balbirnie and Mr. Mike Allen from Focus Ireland; and Ms Helen Faughnan, Ms Jackie Harrington and Mr. Carl O'Rourke from the Department of Social Protection. I invite Mr. Friel to make his opening presentation on behalf of the Peter McVerry trust.

Mr. Brian Friel:

I thank the Chairman and members of the committee for the opportunity to discuss the issue of rent supplement. Peter McVerry Trust was founded over 30 years ago and it currently provides services in housing, adult homelessness, residential care for children under 18, and drug treatment. The charity is also an approved housing body with more than 100 residential units. In 2014 the charity supported 4,460 participants across its services, an increase of 24% on the previous year. The majority of those with whom Peter McVerry Trust engages are young single males with complex needs. Some 57% of those with whom we work are aged between 18 and 35 years.

The private rental market has traditionally been the destination for single people leaving homeless services because social housing has normally been constructed and targeted to the needs of multi-person family households.

The current most pressing challenge experienced by single homeless persons seeking accommodation is that of availability and affordability. Supply in the rental sector in Dublin currently stands at it lowest levels since 2007 and rents have increased year-on-year since 2010, with significant increases in the market since 2013. This situation is not only preventing homeless persons from accessing the private rental market, it is also placing those already in private rented accommodation at increasing risk of homelessness as rising rents exceed existing rent supplement caps. The ability of rent supplement as it currently stands to counter these challenges and support people to secure or maintain rental accommodation is very limited.

The Peter McVerry Trust, PMVT, believes that the rent supplement initiative, RSI, provided clear evidence to show that amendments to the rent supplement system could deliver positive outcomes. The rent supplement initiative first ran as a pilot from December 2012 to August 2013 and was a joint Dublin Regional Homeless Executive, DRHE, and Department of Social Protection initiative involving eight homeless service providers. The initiative was set up to create a centralised application system, to move rent supplement rates closer to market rates, to do more to meet the concerns of landlords, and to trial the payment of rents and deposits in advance and with rapid turnaround times.

After an initial pilot phase a decision was taken to extend the initiative for 15 months operating from September 2013 to December 2014. During this period the Peter McVerry Trust helped 22 households secure private rental accommodation via the initiative on supplements above the existing caps. All of these households received a deposit and month’s rent in advance. The average monthly amount approved over and above the cap was €176. The average monthly rent for the 22 households stood at €684. Accordingly, the cost of housing one household for one year at these higher rates is €8,208. This is significantly lower than what it costs to accommodate a homeless person for one year in emergency accommodation and clearly demonstrates the cost effectiveness of schemes such as the rent supplement initiative.

Based on figures compiled by the DRHE for the period quarter 3 of 2013 to quarter 4 of 2014 of the rent supplement initiative, 100 households were successfully housed in private rental accommodation. Of those, 76 were supported by the initiative by way of payments above the normal cap with the vast majority also receiving advance deposits and the first month’s rent upfront. The 76 progressions to private rented accommodation, even at the higher rent supplement levels, represent a significant saving to the State.

The Peter McVerry Trust believes that the success of the rent supplement initiative was largely dependent on the willingness to pay over and above the rent supplement caps. However, another important aspect was the provision of a deposit and one month’s rent in advance. These factors combined to place homeless households on something approaching an equal footing to others seeking accommodation in the private rental market. The rent supplement initiative was closed to new nominations at the end of December 2014 as the housing assistance payment was rolled out. However, the learning and experience from the RSI has not fully transferred to the new scheme.

While we understand that the housing assistance payment is not the remit of this committee, its consideration is crucial to understanding the context for the strengthening and reform of rent supplement. Members will be aware that the housing assistance payment, or HAP scheme, is being rolled out across a number of local authorities. HAP, while based on rent supplement rates, can provide a payment of 20% above current rent supplement caps up to a limit of €624 for a single person household. However, even with this exceptional payment, it is insufficient to allow many homeless households to secure private rented accommodation, as evidenced by the average rent figures for the rent supplement initiative previously outlined.

Due to these issues, while the Peter McVerry Trust has accessed the HAP scheme for some clients, it has also continued to use the rent supplement system to secure private rental accommodation as this often proves to be a more flexible and effective method of securing private rental accommodation based on client need and closer to market rates. Accordingly, nine of the 12 households progressed to private rented accommodation from the Peter McVerry Trust homeless services since February 2015 secured rent amounts through the rent supplement scheme at levels in excess of the maximum HAP limits. In the remaining three cases, the rent required by the landlord was within HAP limits, but landlords were unwilling to engage in the scheme.

I would like to briefly mention two other issues relevant to the issue of rent supplement. The next issue that we would like to raise - one that is very relevant to this committee - is the issue of young people’s social welfare rates. Approximately 20% of those supported by the Peter McVerry Trust in 2014 were aged between 18 and 25. For those individuals, the ability to secure and sustain private rental accommodation is particularly difficult. They represent the most vulnerable group in adult homeless services.

The young people in homeless services who are not in education are receiving the reduced rate of jobseeker's allowance at €100 per week. Should they find private rented accommodation this €100 must cover a rent supplement contribution of €32 per week and utility and services of approximately €40 per week leaving them with a balance of €28 for food, groceries, transport, and clothing. Sustaining private rented accommodation on this financial basis is not possible. If current welfare rates for homeless people aged under 25 remain unchanged these young people are at risk of becoming trapped in homeless accommodation for prolonged periods of time. That leaves them vulnerable to becoming institutionalised into homelessness and limits their opportunity to gain the required skills for independent living at a time in life when these are best and most readily acquired.

The final issue we would like to highlight is the challenge faced by homeless persons in attempting to secure private rental accommodation. The Peter McVerry Trust’s experience in supporting participants to secure private rented accommodation is that in the normal course of events, they will need to view in the region of ten properties before finding a landlord who will consider them for a possible tenancy and even then the processing time, the rate of supplement available and the availability of deposits and rent in advance can put a prospective landlord off. Even securing a viewing can be difficult as many landlords are reluctant to consider applications from those in receipt of rent allowance. The process can be extremely frustrating for people in homeless services, and many motivated individuals have relapsed into drug use or have recurrences of mental health issues because of the length of time it can take to find accommodation. At the launch of the rent supplement initiative, the Peter McVerry Trust increased the resources it dedicates to its accommodation finders team. The team is dedicated to helping and supporting homeless persons to find accommodation, manage relations with landlords and estate agents as well as helping them to complete all the necessary paperwork.

The Peter McVerry Trust would urge that the significant disparity between market rates and rent supplement caps must be addressed to meet the urgent and immediate housing need of those in homeless services. This could be done in such a way as to provide rent certainty for both landlords and tenants by linking private rent increases to the cost of living index while at the same time increasing rent caps to levels more appropriate to current market rates.

We have highlighted through the rent supplement initiative that, on a per household basis, it is more cost effective to increase rent supplement rates than to continue paying for emergency accommodation. Similarly, it will also be more cost effective to increase young people’s social welfare rates, which together with increased rent supplement rates, would allow more young people to exit homelessness. The Peter McVerry Trust believes that increased costs to the Department of Social Protection resulting from the above measures could be potentially off-set by a reduction in the cost to the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government associated with spending on emergency homeless accommodation.

Joanna Tuffy (Dublin Mid West, Labour)
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I thank Mr. Friel. I call Mr. Mike Allen to make the presentation on behalf of Focus Ireland.

Mr. Mike Allen:

I thank the committee for inviting us in to make the presentation and by its action deciding that this is an important issue to deal with. Focus Ireland is one of the leading national homeless organisations in the country. This is our 30th anniversary. We provide a range of services but probably the most relevant one for this purpose is that we run the family homeless action team, HAT, for the four local authorities in Dublin so that any family in Dublin that is assessed as becoming homeless is allocated emergency accommodation by the local authority such as a hotel room or a room in a B&B and allocated to our team. That gives us an in-depth insight into what is happening in families, which is unique and extremely worrying at the moment.

I do not wish to spend time telling the committee what members as public representatives all know because they all see the scale of the problem. However, to give a brief indication of it, in June last year, there were 247 families with 489 children in homeless accommodation and just nine months later in March this year, there were 471 families with more than 1,054 children in homeless accommodation. When we started doing this work specifically for the Dublin Regional Homeless Executive in 2012 there were approximately eight families per month coming into homelessness. That doubled the year after that and in the following year it doubled again. That is an exponential growth in family homelessness.

Members are all aware of that. I hope they are also increasingly aware that the number of families who get accommodated in emergency accommodation is only part of the problem and that there is an increasing phenomenon of families being assessed as homeless and not being allocated accommodation. The joint team that we run with the Peter McVerry Trust, as the intake team in Dublin, has come across 13 families with children bedding down in cars or in public places in March and April alone.

It is unprecedented in Ireland to have families with children considering sleeping rough. They have not slept rough because we came into contact with them, but I hope that is something every Member of the House and every member of the committee believes in absolutely unacceptable in Ireland and that everything must be done to prevent it from happening.

Everybody agrees on how bad the problem is, and that it is the worst problem in respect of families and singles homelessness we have ever seen. The question is what role rent supplement plays in causing the problem and what role it can play in solving it. There was a growth in the private rented sector over the last decade or so from it catering for approximately 10% of the population to catering for 20% of the population. The vast majority of families who are now facing homelessness were at work during the boom and made their homes in private rented accommodation. As a matter of public policy in this State, that was a legitimate and growing part of our housing provision. When they became unemployed they found themselves unable to afford the rent. The mechanism the Oireachtas has put in place to deal with that situation is the rent supplement legislation, under which people who are in need of assistance to cover their rent are to be given it through that mechanism. For reasons that are still hard to explain, over the last number of years the Department of Social Protection has decided not to fulfil the obligations under the legislation and provide people with adequate money to pay their rent. As a result, a large number of families are becoming homeless.

It is important to understand that when we talk about 71 families becoming homeless in Dublin last month the overwhelming majority of those come from the private rented sector, and the majority of them received rent supplement prior to becoming homeless. The majority of them would give the inadequacy of the rent supplement level as the primary cause of their homelessness. If rent supplement matched market levels, it would not solve our current homelessness crisis - we are not saying it is a silver bullet that would solve the problem - but it would reduce it very substantially and put us in a much stronger position to deal with the rest of the families who become homeless.

It is important to understand the two very important ways in which it works. The first is strict prevention of homelessness, that is, keeping people in their homes when they already have a home and are unable to pay the rent. The inadequacy of rent supplement means that families pay top-ups. It would be virtually impossible to find a single household in Ireland on rent supplement that is not illicitly paying an addition to that to the landlord. Every Deputy and public representative knows it, and it is a scandal that nothing has been done about it. As the rent goes up further, they fall into arrears and eventually end up being evicted. If the rent supplement was adequate that would be less likely to happen.

Even more significantly, where families become homeless many of them have long experience in the private rented sector and many have lost their flats or accommodation previously, but they were always able to find somewhere else. Now, however, if a family is evicted from accommodation and becomes homeless, as our colleagues in the Peter McVerry Trust pointed out, there is no prospect of the family being able to compete in the market because the rent supplement the family is given is totally inadequate. The only way to do so is to top it up. An additional aspect to that is that the way the rent supplement scheme has been handled over the last number of years means that many landlords are unwilling to deal with rent supplement, not because of a prejudice against people on rent supplement, although that exists, but because of an unwillingness to deal with the Department of Social Protection. While the Department is very good at customer relations over recent years, it does not consider landlords to be among its citizen customers and has not treated them in such a way. That will have long-term impacts.

What we are saying fundamentally is that we believe the Department of Social Protection and the Minister are not following the legislation passed by the Oireachtas, which states that the purpose of the legislation is to provide a payment towards the amount of rent payable by a person in respect of his or her residence. That is a significant cause of a large number of people losing their homes and it must be rectified if we are to have any possibility of beginning to come to terms with the scale of the homelessness crisis currently facing us.

Joanna Tuffy (Dublin Mid West, Labour)
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The last speaker is Ms Helen Faughnan on behalf of the Department of Social Protection.

Ms Helen Faughnan:

I thank the committee for the opportunity to appear before it. I am accompanied by Ms Jackie Harrington, who has policy responsibility for rent supplement, and Mr. Carl O'Rourke, who is head of the homeless persons unit and the asylum seekers and new communities unit in Dublin.

The Department recognises that homelessness is one of the most visible and distressing signs of the social impact of the crisis that has hit Ireland since 2008. The Department fully acknowledges the difficulties that people are experiencing, including rent supplement recipients, in maintaining suitable affordable accommodation in the current market, most notably in the urban areas where supply is most acute. In response to these difficulties, the Department has put in place a number of preventative measures to ensure that people at risk of homelessness or loss of their tenancy are supported under the rent supplement scheme where increased rental payments are required. These measures are kept under constant review in the light of vital feedback which we receive, especially from the non-governmental organisations and Oireachtas Members. We are operating an individual case management approach which I will explain shortly. However, this can only work well when those who need the services are aware of what is available and how to access it.

The purpose of the rent supplement scheme is to provide short-term income support to people living in private rented accommodation whose means are insufficient to meet their accommodation costs and who do not have accommodation available to them from any other source. The Government has provided over €298 million for the scheme this year. There are currently approximately 68,000 rent supplement recipients, of whom almost 5,700 have been awarded the rent supplement this year to date.

In March last, the Department published a review of the maximum rent limits under the scheme. The review finds that increasing rent limits at this time could potentially add to further rental inflation in an already distressed market, affecting not only rent supplement recipients but also lower-income workers and students. Between the rent supplement scheme administered by the Department and the rental accommodation scheme administered by the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government, the State accounts for a third of the private rented market. It is therefore a very significant player in the sector.

Fundamentally, the main cause of rising rents is a lack of supply in the market, and increasing the prescribed rent limits will not address this issue. The primary responsibility for provision of accommodation for homeless persons rests with local authorities. The implementation of the range of actions under the Construction 2020 strategy and the social housing strategy will support increased housing supply, but Government recognises that there is a time-lag in the provision of new stock. It is also understood that the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government intends to bring proposals in respect of rent certainty to the Government shortly.

Rather than providing for a blanket increase on rent limits, which will not address the issue, the Department’s preventative policy allows for flexibility in assessing customers’ individual accommodation needs through the national tenancy sustainment framework. Under this approach, each tenant’s circumstances are considered on a case-by-case basis, and rents are being increased above prescribed limits as appropriate. Staff in the community welfare service of the Department who administer the rent supplement scheme have a statutory discretionary power to award or increase a supplement for rental purposes, for example, when dealing with applicants who are risk of losing their tenancy or in danger of homelessness. This flexible approach has already assisted over 2,000 rent supplement households throughout the country to retain their rented accommodation. The Department is also undertaking measures to ensure that cases are considered throughout the country in a consistent manner.

In addition, the Department, in conjunction with Threshold, operates a special protocol in the Dublin and Cork areas where the level of supply is particularly acute. The primary objective of the protocol is to ensure a speedy intervention to ensure that families at immediate risk of losing their tenancy get rapid assistance. Of the 2,000 households I mentioned earlier, over 660 Dublin households and some 20 in Cork received support through increased rental payments as a direct result of engagement under the protocol.

The Department also provides support to persons towards rent deposits and rent in advance under the exceptional needs payments, ENPs, scheme. This form of assistance is very important to those on low incomes who rely on the private rental market to meet their housing needs. Last year, almost 3,000 payments were made towards rent deposits, at a cost of almost €1.5 million. Some 1,000 payments have been made in 2015 to date.

A communication campaign has been put in place to increase the level of public awareness of the supports available from the Department.

It should be noted that in many homeless cases, highlighted in the media, rent supplement recipients had vacated their accommodation without having discussed their situation with Department officials. This information campaign seeks to address this issue and to encourage people at risk to contact the Department, Threshold, or the various non-governmental organisations that are represented here today as early as possible to prevent an unnecessary episode of homelessness.

The Department’s website and that of the Citizens Information Service have been recently updated. In April this year the Department issued text messages to more than 50,000 rent supplement recipients advising of the supports available. Tweets are issuing to departmental followers on a monthly basis. A national poster campaign is also under way and posters have been distributed to all our departmental offices, post offices, citizen information centres, Money Advice and Budgeting Service offices and to Oireachtas Members. The Department is considering further circulation of this information to include local authorities, libraries and credit unions.

The community welfare service, including through its work in the Homeless Persons Unit and the Asylum Seekers and New Communities Unit, works closely with local authorities, homeless action teams and other stakeholders, including the non-governmental organisations, to facilitate homeless persons to access private rented accommodation. This level of inter-agency participation ensures greater integration between the key agencies involved in the area of homelessness and related services. In addition, the Department is represented on the homelessness policy implementation team, led by the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government, to oversee the implementation of the homelessness action plan.

The Government has effectively two initiatives to deal with long-term reliance on rent supplement - the rental accommodation scheme, RAS, which has been in operation since 2004 and the more recent housing assistance payment, HAP, which is currently being rolled out to eight local authority areas. To date, HAP has provided support to approximately 2,140 tenants. In the first quarter of this year, more than 770 rent supplement tenants have transferred to RAS and other social housing options. Both initiatives give the local authorities specific responsibility for meeting the long-term housing needs of people receiving rent supplement. When HAP is fully in place, rent supplement will continue to be paid to clients who are already in the private rented sector but who, generally because of a loss of income through unemployment, require short-term income support in order to pay their rent. Rent supplement will, therefore, over time, return to its original purpose of being a short-term payment.

I want to assure the committee that the Department continues to monitor the measures in place to ensure that the appropriate supports continue to be provided for rent supplement recipients. I wish to advise that a departmental briefing on the flexibility provided under rent supplement has been arranged for Oireachtas Members tomorrow afternoon in order that as many people as possible are aware of the Department’s position and can advise people locally. If it would be helpful, I can give the committee information on the number of supports in place at a local level.

Overall, the response to the current extremely difficult housing situation must be multifaceted and the arrangements put in place need not only to meet the immediate need but to be sustainable for the future. I trust the presentation is of assistance to the committee and I am happy to discuss any issues raised or proposals made.

Joanna Tuffy (Dublin Mid West, Labour)
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Will the briefing that will take place tomorrow be held in the audio visual room?

Ms Helen Faughnan:

Yes, at 2.30 p.m. tomorrow.

Joanna Tuffy (Dublin Mid West, Labour)
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I have taken note of that. I will move on to questions from members; the first speaker is Deputy Ellis.

Dessie Ellis (Dublin North West, Sinn Fein)
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I thank the witnesses for their presentations. There is no doubt that even since Christmas and following the death of Jonathan Corrie that this situation has got increasingly worse. The number who are homeless has nearly doubled and it is mainly families who now find themselves in this situation. I attended emergency meeting after emergency meeting at Christmas and we brought onstream approximately 260 units for single people, for which there has been a flood in demand. We also opened a night café. This major problem is continuing to get out of control.

A major issue currently has been the haemorrhage from rent supplement and RAS with more people ending up homelessness. That is due to landlords making various excuses - some of which are genuine although the majority of them are not - as to why they want to get back their properties or they may state that the banks are taking charge of them but, in many instances, we find that is not the case. We have repeatedly asked why the Government has not introduced some rent controls. It has continually used the term "rent certainty" and I am getting sick of hearing that term. We need to address the issue of rents spiralling out of control. We now have a major housing bubble and a housing rental bubble. It is every bit as bad, or perhaps worse, than what we had during the worse excesses of the Celtic tiger. That is how badly this is affecting many people. It seems there is no rush by any Minister or Government Deputy to introduce a mechanism to stop this haemorrhage. We need to stop it immediately. One of the reason that the HAP initiative was introduced-----

Joanna Tuffy (Dublin Mid West, Labour)
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I ask the Deputy to put his questions.

Dessie Ellis (Dublin North West, Sinn Fein)
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I am coming to my questions.

Joanna Tuffy (Dublin Mid West, Labour)
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It is important to remember-----

Dessie Ellis (Dublin North West, Sinn Fein)
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I need to elaborate on the issue before I pose my questions.

Joanna Tuffy (Dublin Mid West, Labour)
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-----that members have only three minutes to contribute.

Dessie Ellis (Dublin North West, Sinn Fein)
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I understand that but I am very frustrated about this issue.

Joanna Tuffy (Dublin Mid West, Labour)
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I will have to cut the Deputy off at a certain point.

Dessie Ellis (Dublin North West, Sinn Fein)
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People who were in receipt of rental supplement will now be in receipt of a housing assistance payment. No new people will be in receipt of such a payment and that is another problem. The introduction of the HAP initiative was part of the Government's policy to improve the position, but that has not happened and we are barely holding on to what we have in place. Moving on to my questions for the witnesses, do they all agree that we need rent controls in place, whether they be tied to the consumer price index, inflation or some such mechanism that is used in other European countries? Under the HAP initiative, there is no system of deposits in place

Joanna Tuffy (Dublin Mid West, Labour)
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The Deputy must conclude. He should indicate whether he wants the witnesses from the Department, Focus Ireland or the Peter McVerry trust to respond to that question.

Dessie Ellis (Dublin North West, Sinn Fein)
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What is the Department's expenditure on rent supplement and on the rental accommodation scheme? The last figure we heard for the number of people in receipt of rent supplement was 78,000 but that figure has decreased to 71,000. That indicates that 7,000 of that initial number are no longer in receipt of that supplement. Some of those people are now in receipt of a housing assistance payment but a number of them have disappeared in terms of the number in receipt of the supplement, which indicates that a huge number of those people are homeless. Do the witnesses accept that view?

Joanna Tuffy (Dublin Mid West, Labour)
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Okay, Deputy.

Dessie Ellis (Dublin North West, Sinn Fein)
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I will leave it at that as I would have a million questions.

Joanna Tuffy (Dublin Mid West, Labour)
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The Deputy can come back in a second time. I point out that we do not have officials in attendance from the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government to answer questions relevant to that Department.

Dessie Ellis (Dublin North West, Sinn Fein)
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I hope I will get answers to some of my questions.

Joanna Tuffy (Dublin Mid West, Labour)
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I call Deputy Collins.

Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, United Left)
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I thank the witnesses for their presentations. As always, Focus Ireland and the Peter McVerry Trust have succinctly outlined the issues and rent supplement plays a very small role in this respect. Mr. Brian Friel spoke about the resources needed to secure private rental accommodation and that is one of the key areas. That is particularly the case when people are motivated, want to get accommodation and they link in with the services. However, if they are pushed back and the provision of the accommodation is delayed for weeks on end, there is the possibility that they could relapse into drug abuse or return to being homeless. Can the Department of Social Protection set up a protocol whereby once the witnesses, who are directly dealing with the trust to solve these problems, have the deposits or advance rent payments ready to be transferred, that there would not be a question of every individual having to be dealt with differently or separately? It is a matter of getting the process moving and dealing with it closely. The trust would approach the Department and advise that it has a person who needs accommodation, that the rented accommodation is available and that it needs the rental money now. That approach would not give the landlords the excuse to be able to play around with the issue and say there is a problem. Mr. Mike Allen was right in saying there is a degree of discrimination in that some landlords will not get involved with the Department because of the hassle of getting the moneys and deposits in place. I would like to hear the Department's response to that issue. It is also what I have experienced even with the housing first model. It is probably not related to rent supplement as such but it is the issue of how the Department links in with the organisations that supply the service for homeless people.

People are asked what are their emergency needs, for example, white goods and so forth, but a link should be established immediately with the organisations working with homeless people. This would mean that things could move quickly when a council flat or private rented accommodation becomes available as there would be a one-stop-shop for dealing with these issues. The Department and the relevant organisations would work together and one would not find three weeks after accommodation has been found that this, that or the other had not been sorted out. Everyone must get together to address this issue because the money has to be spent on the people in question in any case.

How many people are moving from satellite towns to Dublin to seek support they are unable to obtain from their local authorities? I am aware, for example, that Traveller families are moving from Kildare to Dublin because the capital is the only area where they can link in to emergency services. How will the Department address this issue? The housing organisations in Dublin are under severe pressure as a result of the housing crisis. I do not know how their front-line staff cope with it. Every day, five families become homeless and the homeless charities have to deal with them, which is not sustainable.

Brendan Ryan (Dublin North, Labour)
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Until about 12 months ago, I was beating the drum for a review of the caps on rent supplement and calling for an increase in the caps. As a practitioner in my local area, I could see all sorts of pressures on the rent supplement caps. In recent times, however, the most pressing issue has been finding accommodation, in other words, it is a problem of housing supply rather than caps on rent supplement. I spent yesterday afternoon with a client who will be made homeless this weekend because the landlord is taking back the house. I would be delighted if caps on rent supplement were the only problem. I telephoned three letting agents yesterday, none of which had a single place available. Estate agents inform me that they are fortunate if one property becomes available for letting each month. They would be out of business if it were not for the increase in property sales. Clearly, an increase in the caps on rent supplement would not work as it would not solve the problem for a family that is made homeless next Monday.

Rent certainty or rent control - call it what one will - is very important. The Minister indicated he will soon introduce measures in this area. While I accept that legislation is also required to address the problem of landlords refusing rent supplement, outlawing this practice will not prevent it from happening.

The most serious problem is the supply of homes. One can increase rent caps to whatever level one wishes but it will not solve the problem given the absence of houses. This is the biggest and most frustrating issue I encounter. It is shocking to deal with families who are facing the prospect of homelessness within one week. Trying to deal with these issues is the most deflating aspect of the work I do.

I am contacted constantly by people asking where they are on the housing list. They are frustrated by the lack of council homes. While social housing will come on stream as a result of recent announcements by the Government, it will be between 18 months and two years before homes are handed over to tenants. I do not know what are the views of the representatives of the Peter McVerry Trust and Focus Ireland on this matter. The crisis will continue until supply increases in 12 to 18 months.

This is a multifaceted problem for which there is no simple solution. Identifying measures that will help to manage the transition from a lack of supply to supply is the greatest challenge for all of us. No one, either a politician or someone else, can say he or she has a solution or that increasing rent caps will solve the problem. The issue is more serious than that.

Marie Louise O'Donnell (Independent)
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The Department of Social Protection spends €20 billion per annum and 42% of the tax I pay is subsequently allocated to the Department. I am pleased that is the case because some people are not as fortunate as others and may need help at certain times in their lives.

There seems to be a gulf between the views expressed by the Department and those expressed by the Peter McVerry Trust and Focus Ireland. We have reached an impasse. The housing charities argue that the rent supplement payment is not sufficient to meet the cost of rent. Mr. Allen argued that, even if rent supplement were set at market rates, the problem would not be fully resolved. The Department argues that increasing rent supplement limits could add to rental inflation. This is only one aspect of the gulf in opinion. Will Mr. Allen explain the reasons he vehemently disagrees with some of the solutions proposed by the Department?

The next issue I raise may be a maverick one as I do not have the same experience as other Deputies and Senators who hold clinics and encounter the problem of homelessness every day. In that respect, I must bow to their better judgment. I travel the country in another role and every satellite town I visit within 30 or 50 miles of Dublin has half-built or quarter-built estates or finished estates in which no one lives. No one knows who owns these properties. Deputy Brendan Ryan is correct that we do not have enough social housing because we took our eyes off the ball when we stopped building proper homes and social housing. We were all reared around Dublin Corporation and local authority housing where children grew up with a big field in front of their homes. That approach to social housing disappeared. Perhaps this is a maverick question but why is there such an impasse about idle estates outside Dublin? I see them right and left as I enter and leave every town and village I visit. I ask the witnesses to address this issue.

I also ask Mr. Allen to respond to some of the solutions proposed by Ms Faughnan because there is a major gulf between the views expressed by the officials and those expressed by the housing charities.

Catherine Byrne (Dublin South Central, Fine Gael)
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I apologise for my absence during the presentation by departmental officials, although I was here for the other presentations. In 1999, I was elected to Dublin City Council to represent the south-west inner city, an area with among the highest number of social housing flat complexes in the country. I remember regularly walking around all of them. Despite the large sums spent on these flat complexes, some of them had to be demolished for various and complicated reasons, including anti-social behaviour and management problems. During my time on Dublin City Council, people lodged objections to beat the band about the height and so on of large apartment blocks that it was proposed to build near the Coombe bypass. I often wonder if the same would happen today given the position we are in.

I was a member of the regeneration board of St. Michael's Estate in Fatima Mansions and Dolphin House. My greatest regret is the failure of the regeneration board to approve the plan for St. Michael's Estate and allow a new estate to be built. It was proposed to build between 400 and 500 units.

The board meeting got down to the nitty-gritty matters such as people wanting to know the colour of their windows, the handles on their doors, whether they would have a front and back garden and the colour of the bricks. It became very frustrating. I left the regeneration board when I was elected to the Dáil, totally frustrated. After millions of euro going into St. Michael’s Estate, we produced a plan but could not get agreement on it. Sadly, the plan was denied because of a small pocket of people. The voices of everyone who lived in the surrounding areas were not even heard.

Today, we have a beautiful green of six acres left over. I hope to God we never build on it again. We had Richmond Barracks, Keogh Square and then St. Michael’s Estate on the site which was a failure as social housing. I hope we never build on it again and give the people who live around this site in Tyrone Place, Emmet Crescent and Thornton Heights a place on which to look out. It has got to the stage that some of the regeneration boards have long passed the capability of making any decisions. It is a personal gripe of mine and has nothing to do with the party to which I belong.

Joanna Tuffy (Dublin Mid West, Labour)
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The Deputy must remember that the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government is not here to answer these questions on this particular issue.

Catherine Byrne (Dublin South Central, Fine Gael)
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I understand that but I am putting together the reasons that we are so short of social housing.

Recently, Dublin City Council turned down two developments, one at O'Devaney Gardens for the refurbishment of 67 units, and the other in Maryland. I can understand height restrictions but if they had been altered, we would have extra housing units. The Government has invested €12.5 million to build 52 units in St. Teresa’s Gardens and given €3.5 billion as a start-off for social housing building over the next several years. The Government has given over €500 million to Dublin alone for landbanks for house building. No one can tell me the Government is not looking at building. It is, but the problem is when a plan comes to the council, it is rejected. The latest plan of 67 units for O’Devaney Gardens would have seen 67 families coming out of hotel rooms where they cannot live in one room with three children. It is appalling. The council needs to wake up and smell the grass.

Dessie Ellis (Dublin North West, Sinn Fein)
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It is a lot more complicated than that.

Catherine Byrne (Dublin South Central, Fine Gael)
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It is simple, not complicated. I did not interrupt Deputy Ellis.

Joanna Tuffy (Dublin Mid West, Labour)
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Will Deputy Catherine Byrne please ask a supplementary question?

Catherine Byrne (Dublin South Central, Fine Gael)
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That was not a rant at the delegations opposite. Those are the facts.

Focus Ireland stated in its submission:

The only way to stem that flow is to provide families with the support they need to stay in their homes and for the largest single group of families that means increasing rent supplement to realistic levels.

What is a realistic level? Can Focus Ireland give me a number?

The Peter McVerry Trust, an organisation which I admire greatly for its work with young people, stated in it submission: “Approximately 20% of those supported by the trust in 2014 were aged between 18-25.” What was that total figure for which the 20% comprised? Was it 100 or 1,000 people?

Denis Naughten (Roscommon-South Leitrim, Independent)
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I want to raise an issue with the Department of which I have personal experience and one which departmental officials are screaming about to have addressed but the door is being closed in their faces. Athlone has a student population which means there is limited availability of accommodation. It is equally as bad as in any other city, a point which is not recognised by the Department. The provisions being put in place in Dublin and Cork also need to be put in place for towns like Athlone where there is a significant shortage of accommodation and people are being put out on the street because they cannot get accommodation in the first place.

The specific issue I want to raise is on rent caps. The rent cap for a couple with two children in Monksland, County Roscommon, is €410. However, because the country boundary is the white line in the middle of the road, the rent cap on the County Westmeath side is €520, €110 of a difference from one side of the road to the other. The Department’s own officials have been pleading with the Department to change this rule in Athlone. It is the exact same in Ballinasloe where the rent cap in County Galway is higher than it is in County Roscommon. Again, a white line in the middle of the road is defining that. The Department is essentially telling people in County Roscommon that if they want to be on rent supplement, they can no longer live in Roscommon and must move to County Westmeath or County Galway to get accommodation. As they move geographic location, they are taken off the Roscommon local authority housing list and put on the housing list in the adjoining county. Not only is the Department telling them they cannot live in their own county, the county where they were born and reared and where their children might be going to school, but it is telling them they must permanently move outside of their own local authority area to reside in another county. The Department’s officials are pleading to have these anomalies addressed. Nothing, however, will be done because the decision has been taken that there will be no movement, even on gaping anomalies like this.

We are paying out substantial sums of money in rent allowance. The Department, however, will still not put specific provisions in place to deal with recipients engaged in anti-social behaviour. A persistent offender in a local authority tenancy will be turfed out on the street because they are causing absolute chaos in a particular community. They will still get rent allowance from the Department of Social Protection, however. They can cause absolute pandemonium in communities but the Department will say it is not its issue even though it is paying them over €500 every single month. It is not good enough that conditions will not be put on this payment. The law needs to be changed on this. The same rules that apply to local authority tenants should apply to recipients of the rent allowance scheme.

Ms Helen Faughnan:

Rent control is a matter for the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government. It is examining these and we would welcome any progress on that issue. It is not correct that no new people are coming on to the housing assistance payment scheme, HAP. Out of the 2,140 people who have come on to the scheme, 60% of those, 1,300, are new applicants. The remaining 40% are existing rent supplement recipients transferring over.

A protocol is in place with the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government and the local authorities on deposits and ensuring the Department of Social Protection will pay a rental deposit to help secure tenancy. HAP is looking at the legislation on rental deposits under the HAP mechanism. At the moment, HAP is new and the Department is working hand in hand with the other agencies involved to ensure the processes are supported. It is correct that the number of rent supplement tenants has fallen with a 15,000 drop in the number of recipients over the past three years. That is partly a reduction in the live register but also the transfer of people on to RAS, rental accommodation scheme, and other social housing options. During the same period, 14,000 people transferred from rent supplement onwards. There is quite a large churn in rent supplement. As I mentioned earlier, over 5,400 people have come on to the rent supplement scheme since the beginning of this year.

Deputy Joan Collins spoke about working hand in hand with the NGOs and having mechanisms in place.

The Peter McVerry Trust talked about the rent supplement initiative. That has been in place since 2012 and is working very well. Around the country our officials are on homeless action teams, HAT. We engage with the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, Threshold, Focus Ireland, the Simon Community and all sorts of local organisations. There is very good engagement and a lot of case conferencing. If cases are brought to our attention, we will have a rent deposit ready for those people and pay a rent in advance to try to secure a tenancy in that place.

I have responsibility for six of the Department’s 13 divisions. I was recently in Cork, where we have a homeless unit which is next door to the offices of the Simon Community. They work hand in hand. They were invited to brief the new St. Vincent de Paul volunteers in the Cork area. The community welfare staff briefed them on a Saturday to make sure they were aware of the supports we have in place because they are in touch with some of the most vulnerable people and we want to help them.

Deputy Ryan spoke about housing supply. That is the biggest issue that the NGOs here today and we and many others battle with. There is a lot of work being done by the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government and the local authorities. I will not go into it now but there are directives from the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government about the cohort of housing stock that has to be prioritised, etc. There is a National Asset Management Agency, NAMA, unit coming on stream in Tallaght and other similar initiatives.

In respect of rent supplement, it was of particular concern to the Department that leading property websites put up no rent supplement filters. We engaged with them and they agreed to take down those filters and accepted this was not in line with best equality legislation. We have a lot of interaction with those types of stakeholders.

In response to the questions about rent supplement not being sufficient, and to Deputy Naughten’s question, a blanket increase in rent supplement limits across the country would give us little or no available extra supply but as I have reiterated in two very clear directives to the staff, they have flexibility - we call it Article 38 - to examine people’s needs on a case by case basis. In some cases, for example, a young vulnerable person, we will pay above the rent supplement limit, particularly if that person is on a reduced jobseeker's payment. Issues arise in the boundary areas between Roscommon and Athlone where there is a higher socio-economic group and accommodation is taken up by students in Athlone. It is the same in north Kildare because of the good manufacturers there, which take up the supply. The staff, whether in Roscommon or Athlone, have discretion to try to support people to secure that accommodation. There is direct contact around the country in all our community welfare service units with non-governmental organisations, NGOs, and Oireachtas Members who deal with these people in their clinics should come to talk to us if they feel the flexibility is not being deployed. There are almost 7,000 staff in the Department, and with the best will in the world, consistency may be an issue. Oireachtas Members should talk to us or to the divisional managers because this is the safety net and we want to make sure it is deployed effectively throughout the country.

In response to Deputy Naughten’s question about anti-social behaviour and rent supplement, up to now if a person worked and paid rent, the agreement was with the landlord. If that person lost their job or was ill and could not pay the rent, we were there to step in to be the safety net for a short period of time. It was never intended as a long-term housing solution. Unfortunately, it has turned out that way for just under 70,000 people that we support. A substantial sum of money, €298 million, has been set aside. It is a demand-led scheme and resources will be made available to meet the needs. The contract is between the landlord and the tenant. The landlords must enforce the tenant obligations. The Private Residential Tenancies Board, PRTB, was set up with a specific remit in this area to enforce tenants’ obligations and it has powers in that respect. We have powers such that if a local authority or someone else complains to us and the landlord has to suspend or terminate a tenancy because of anti-social behaviour, we will stop the rent supplement payment. The programme for Government commitment in this area is through the housing assistance payment, HAP. Under HAP, the local authority will pay the rent directly to the landlord. If there is an anti-social problem it will be handled using that mechanism.

Mr. Ashley Balbirnie:

I am chief executive of Focus Ireland. Two issues were raised about Focus Ireland, one was the points of difference between us and the Department of Social Protection and one was about the financial differential. There are several areas where we are very much in agreement with what is happening. I am very conscious that organisations such as ours are sometimes seen as hurlers on the ditch, throwing abuse and nothing positive into the pot. We agree with many of the things that have been said here. Fundamentally, supply is the big issue, as Deputy Ryan pointed out. This is at the root of everything. There will be a massive problem over the next couple of years about supply. There is no question whatsoever about that. In the meantime we are doing everything we can, starting with Housing First, in partnership with the Peter McVerry Trust. We are beating every bush to try to bring additional property into the situation. Likewise, with the family HAT.

We are also very much in favour of what is being done about rent certainty and there are some very positive moves there. We are absolutely behind that. We are positive about what is happening with the rental accommodation scheme, RAS, and HAP, and particularly the Department’s willingness to engage on a case by case basis and the work it does with our sister organisation, Threshold. We are also all for the multi-faceted approach, which was mentioned.

The big point of differentiation, and the main point we want to make today, is in respect of rent supplement. Rent supplement rates were last altered in June 2013 but according to the property website, DAFT, rent rates have gone up 22% nationally since then. In Dublin, they have risen by between 22% and 40%. Crucially, we believe that rent supplement is part of the answer. Nobody argues with that. For it to work, however, it must relate economically to the market rent. In a situation where the market rent has increased between 20% and 40% there has to be adjustment to take account of that because, otherwise, rent supplement ceases to fulfil its purpose. That is the main point we want to make today.

Marie Louise O'Donnell (Independent)
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There is so much that both organisations acknowledge in the effort all are making. However, that seems to be a major impasse.

Joanna Tuffy (Dublin Mid West, Labour)
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We will just bring in-----

Marie Louise O'Donnell (Independent)
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Does the Department want to answer?

Joanna Tuffy (Dublin Mid West, Labour)
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First of all I would like to bring in Mr. Pat Doyle. If there are any supplemental questions, we can go back.

Mr. Pat Doyle:

Thank you, Chairman. I am the CEO of the Peter McVerry Trust. I thank the committee for inviting us. I would like to echo what Mr. Balbirnie was saying. This is very complex and there are multiple issues at stake. We have had a very good working relationship with the Department of Social Protection. Deputy Ellis raised the issue of rent certainty, which we have been pushing for. In other countries, if people have rent certainty for three to five years' tenure, it gives them time to plan and perhaps to move beyond private renting. We need that and appreciate that efforts have been made to address it.

The rent cap has to be part of it. Deputy Ryan is right that supply is the overwhelming issue. The trust has been very fortunate in respects of announcements by the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government in the last two years, and there are a number of major building projects on the way. One is to start in July; the funding for it was granted last year, the building will take place this year and we will not get a tenancy before the new year. Although the building work will be happening over the next 18 months to two or three years, in the meantime we have a huge number of people in emergency beds who need to get out. We also have a great number of people who need to be given emergency beds. We had the crisis at Christmas, when 260 or 270 beds came in, and they are full now. If we do not get people out of the emergency beds, we will not be able to bring people in. Rent caps play a role in that.

We spent a good proportion of our presentation talking about the rent supplement initiative, which worked very well in conjunction with the Department of Social Protection. We named 400 people in emergency beds who were ready for private accommodation and we had people out trying to get properties with appropriate levels of rent. While the housing assistance payment, HAP, allows homeless households a 20% increase in the maximum rent limits, the rents we were agreeing with the Department of Social Protection were above that. Although we are not discussing HAP, let us not take any scheme or idea off the table. Let us keep talking about the rent caps, because they are not meeting market rates at the moment, and let us bring back the rent supplement initiative which enabled us to go above the 20% increase allowed through HAP.

Marie Louise O'Donnell (Independent)
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I would be interested in what the Department officials have to say in response, although they have only begun working together and it is an enormous problem. I also think the Department of Social Protection is a benevolent city in itself in respect of our citizens. I am interested in how it is responding to the point that Focus Ireland and the Peter McVerry Trust are making. It seems to be the major impasse, although we all accept all the other things, the losses.

Brendan Ryan (Dublin North, Labour)
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To me, discussion of rent caps in different areas such as Dublin, Athlone or wherever is not getting at the real issue. What community welfare officers have got to have, rather than generalised caps, is the flexibility to respond to the market locally. About a year to a year and a half ago, I did not see that flexibility, but I see it now. CWOs are now responding to individual cases and upping the caps as appropriate, which is very positive.

In terms of supply, around the country, including in my own area of Fingal, there are now moves towards providing more accommodation, and the councils are beginning to build houses. However, we are also seeing people objecting to these houses, while so-called left-wing parties with representatives in this House are voting against those social houses. We all have got to examine our conscience in terms of the political groupings we are involved with. Supply is a big issue and we must facilitate it as far as possible.

Joanna Tuffy (Dublin Mid West, Labour)
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On that point, when I was on a council a few years ago, there was an understanding between the parties that none of us would object to Traveller accommodation. Very rarely did anyone break ranks, and we got the issue addressed in that Traveller accommodation was built. The same issue arises for homeless accommodation. Some parties are putting their head on the platter and backing homeless accommodation while others are being populist. It is then very likely that the whole thing will collapse. There should be cross-party agreement that we all stand together and support provision for homeless accommodation and housing.

Denis Naughten (Roscommon-South Leitrim, Independent)
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The frustrating thing about the rent caps is that they are far too low. Homelessness was traditionally a city problem, and when families are being left homeless in rural counties like Roscommon, something is seriously wrong. That is what I am dealing with at the moment. There are crisis situations for families trying to get accommodation in the first place.

To give one example, a young lady came to me last week who was being discharged from an acute psychiatric unit. No appointment had been made with the community welfare officer and there was very little engagement from the social worker appointed by the psychiatric service with the community welfare service. The social worker instructed the young woman to do a deal with the landlord and pay him €100 in cash under the table. The social worker did not realise that €100 is a waste of time as the current market rates are €250 over what she would be able to pay on the rent cap. Although it is welcome that flexibility is coming in to the system, the other agencies are not aware of it and it is not being brought to their attention, and even that flexibility is insufficient to secure accommodation. This young woman was advised that she needed to go to a rural area, yet she has to attend an acute psychiatric unit on a weekly basis. There is no public transport except in the urban areas, so she is going to be left to her own devices in a rural area, isolated, after coming out of an acute psychiatric unit. She will back in again as an admission. The system is failing her.

I can give numerous examples from County Roscommon, the most rural county in the country, in which there is more than sufficient housing stock as a whole. We have specific problems that are in some instances as bad as those in Dublin because of the inflexibility of the system. The rent caps are falling far short of the reality.

Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, United Left)
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The housing crisis will last for many years unless the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government provides some facility to allow Dublin City Council and the local authorities to build houses. They cannot do it at the moment and are mainly dependent on the voluntary sector to build housing - organisations such as the National Association of Building Co-operatives, NABCO, Circle Voluntary Housing Association, and Clúid Housing. Some people are saying that we will start seeing houses being built, yet we have 100,000 people on the housing list. Between November and January last, 6,000 people went on the Dublin City Council housing list.

This should be addressed in the same way the Financial Emergency Measures in the Public Interest Bill - the so-called FEMPI legislation - was dealt with, on a emergency basis. In the meantime, very vulnerable people are finding themselves homeless. Traveller people and others who are not used to dealing with bureaucracy are being told to go ahead and get private accommodation themselves because they cannot be put into the emergency housing. It has to be resolved and the Department must make it as easy as possible for the NGOs to do that. That should be the focus of our discussion today, as the other issues are too broad to deal with in this meeting.

On the idea of the rent supplement initiative, can the Department give a commitment that it will keep it on the burner so that it is at least taken into account?

The rent supplement threshold must be increased. Between 2013 and 2015, the cost of renting in Dublin increased by almost 40%. As landlords continue to increase rents on a yearly basis, we will be dealing with them in a crisis situation anyway. We need to do deal with that issue now and address other crises as they arise.

Dessie Ellis (Dublin North West, Sinn Fein)
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Many speakers today stated that the market sets rent levels. The problem is that when there is insufficient housing stock, house prices continue to rise and so, too, does the cost of rent. We need to find a way to control the market. In other words, we must ensure rents are not increased by any more than the cost of inflation. We will be continually faced with crises in this area if that thinking is allowed to continue.

In regard to the construction of social housing schemes, the mindset that these must include social mix and so on is rubbish. I come from a working class estate. The problem with that estate and many other estates is the lack of facilities. There is nothing wrong with social housing estates; the problem is the lack of facilities, including creches, schools and so on. There are areas in respect of which social mix may work. There are plenty of greenfield sites available. Trying to squeeze housing estates into already populated areas is causing major problems with residents. An example in this regard is O'Devaney Gardens, some of the residents of which have been waiting ten years for homes and are still in situ. It is now proposed to invest €6 million in the redevelopment of particular blocks of flats in that complex and make them available to the homeless sector. The reality is that had sufficient houses been built, there would be more housing stock available for the homeless sector. There is great opposition to the proposed redevelopment of O'Devaney Gardens.

The local authorities currently do not have the money required to build social housing. There has been much talk from Government about the proposed €3.8 billion to be spent on social housing but none of this funding has yet been provided to the local authorities. Nothing is happening quick enough, be that rent controls or rent certainty. Despite all of the promises made over the past couple of years, nothing has yet happened. That is the problem.

Catherine Byrne (Dublin South Central, Fine Gael)
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I do not propose to engage in a lengthy debate around housing issues in relation to O'Devaney Gardens. People need to speak factually about what is happening at council level. Planning permissions are being sought but they are being refused. This has nothing to do with the residents, many of whom I have spoken to. Only last week, a resident told me that she would have welcomed redevelopment in the area because it would mean her child, who has lived in the area all her life, might be eligible for one of the redeveloped properties.

Last year, I was approached by a woman who had been in rented accommodation for 18 years, in respect of which she was in receipt of rent allowance. When I asked her the reason for that, she told me that nobody had asked her to move out. My understanding was that rent supplement was never to be a long-term solution. In my view, it was only when landlords started taking back properties because they were in financial difficulty and needed to sell them or because they had family members who had lost their homes and needed them, that people who had gotten comfortable in rented accommodation realised they could be faced with homelessness if they did not get their names on the county council housing waiting lists. However, what they did not realise was that their eligibility for housing is linked to the year they joined the list.

I agree there is a real problem in the social housing area. However, the biggest problem we face in this regard, in particular in the inner circle of Dublin, is land availability. There was a time when there was plenty of land available along the Coombe bypass.

Joanna Tuffy (Dublin Mid West, Labour)
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I must ask Deputy Byrne to be brief.

Catherine Byrne (Dublin South Central, Fine Gael)
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There were many apartments built in that area, in respect of which we faced many battles. The issue of rent supplement and people being left long term in rented accommodation will not be resolved by councils rejecting planning permissions every day of the week. That is the problem now. I will give an example. Three blocks of flats at St. Theresa's Gardens have been redeveloped to accommodate people until such time as new homes have been constructed for them. A similar proposal was made in relation to O'Devaney Gardens but it was rejected at city council level by way of a motion put forward by the Lord Mayor of the city, which is an absolute scandal. We should be ashamed of ourselves.

Joanna Tuffy (Dublin Mid West, Labour)
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I have two questions for the Department officials. Will people, in particular lone parents, who obtain increased working hours and as a result move from jobseeker's allowance to the family income supplement, which is a lot more favourable to them financially, lose their rent supplement?

Has the Peter McVerry Trust and Clúid, as housing agencies, been able to access finance to purchase leases or build houses? If not, are there are plans to do so? Also, what progress, if any, has there been in relation to the NAMA social dividend in terms of social housing supply?

Mr. Mike Allen:

In regard to NAMA, I think we have done very well to get this far without having mentioned NAMA. In regard to the social dividend to be delivered by NAMA, in my view, there was an exaggerated expectation in terms of what it could deliver and, therefore, disappointment. Everything that involves NAMA takes an enormous amount of time. Ms Faughnan referred earlier to the additional units in Tallaght which were supposed to be opened last month. Another month on, there have been further delays in relation to the Tallaght issue, which is related to the points made by Deputies in relation to properties elsewhere. There is a need for greater oversight by Government of what NAMA has and how it could be utilised. More could be done on that than has been done. Focus Ireland and the Peter McVerry Trust are housing associations as opposed to housing agencies. Focus Ireland has approval from the Housing Finance Agency but has not yet drawn down any of that funding. As stated by Mr. Balbirnie, we have a significant plan to deliver our own housing. However, it will be only a small contribution to the overall picture.

Reference was made to the difference in perspective between us and the Department of Social Protection. The strongest argument put forward by the Minister and the Department is that any increase in the rent supplement threshold will result in increased inflation. There are two responses to that. First, there is no evidence of that. I have looked at the economics of supply and demand. If one looks at what the Department has done, it is quite clear there is no correlation in that there has been a 20% to 40% increase in rents and no increase in rent supplement. In making a policy decision which has enormous consequences for people, one requires evidence. Second, this is not what is set down in the legislation enacted by the Oireachtas. That legislation does not make any reference to "with awareness of the housing market", rather it provides that the maximum must relate to a person's need to provide accommodation for themselves. There should be much closer scrutiny by the Oireachtas of the Department of Social Protection in this matter.

On the point made by Deputy Ryan, we are not saying that an increase in rent supplement would solve the problem. One cannot as an advocate acknowledge a policy that does not solve the entire problem because the immediate response is always that there is no point bothering and so on. An increase in the rent supplement threshold would make a significant difference. There is a shortage of housing but the people who will be homeless next month and the month after already have a house. Some 30% of the people who will become homeless next month and the month after will lose their homes because the rent supplement levels are not high enough. We all may lament the fact that they have not contacted Threshold or had a chat with a community welfare officer, but the fact is that is not happening. It is a systematic problem. Rent supplement has not followed the legislation or the will of the Oireachtas and the result is that a significant number of vulnerable people are ending up homeless. That is a direct outcome of the policy position that has been taken on this issue.

It needs to be recognised by the Houses of the Oireachtas that one of the dozens of things that needs to be done is to deal with maximum threshold for rent supplement. It will not resolve the majority of cases, but it is the single biggest step that could be taken to resolve it and to allow us as organisations to get back to working together on the other issues that we need to be combining on.

Mr. Pat Doyle:

Briefly, we are an approved housing body as well. We have not got financial approval yet, but we have taken out two loans this year through private sources to assist with our capital build. To give a very quick example, we have been working with Threshold and a family on getting the additional moneys required to sustain them in their accommodation. That worked for a period and then the landlord put up the rent again. Threshold did a great job in ensuring the family got the deposit back and the month's rent in advance, because they were being asked to leave on 1 May when they had paid the rent for May. However, we had to house a family with nine children from the Fingal area overnight because, even with the additional valuable supports from the Department of Social Protection, the landlord increased the rent again.

Joanna Tuffy (Dublin Mid West, Labour)
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Is that not an argument against increasing the rent cap?

Mr. Pat Doyle:

No. We are saying that the rent went up by €350 over four months. That family, on one low income, could not continue to pay that rent. If we had been able to go with the rent supplement initiative in that case, we would have been able to go above the 20% of the housing assistance payment and we might have been able to hold them in. I mention that case to support what Mr. Allen is saying - that the majority of those who are coming our way at the moment already have a property. We just need to keep them in the property.

Ms Helen Faughnan:

We do not accept that we are not managing the scheme as set out by the Oireachtas, because the discretionary powers we are implementing at this time of crisis are built into the legislation and are part of our preventative measures. There is an awareness in the Department of market rents. It is critical that we are not operating in a bubble. The staff on the ground are aware of the market rents and they are increasing support, where feasible, to meet these rents. For example, at present in Athlone there are only eight three-bedroom properties available to rent. It comes back to the supply issue. As part of the review, we looked at the costings of increasing support right across the board. For example, if we decided we wanted to try to supply 500 extra houses in Dublin, we would be talking about an increased cost of about €63 million annually. The problem was that that would give us very little bang for our buck. The people it would put at risk are low-income workers, who could not compete with this. It is very much a balancing effort. Staff in the Department have been instructed to look at market rents in the area and to meet the needs according to that. I assure members of the committee that we will continue to roll out and to support the rent supplement initiative, on which Mr. O'Rourke is the lead person, as long as is necessary. We will be working with the housing assistance payment homeless pilot in Dublin to ensure this happens.

Deputy Naughten talked about the psychiatric side, which is very disturbing. There is a protocol with the HSE. There is a hospital discharge policy. Under that protocol, staff in hospitals are supposed to get in touch with the local authority placement service, which has direct links with the Department of Social Protection, if the local authority cannot place someone. It is crucial that local staff are working on the ground to make that happen. For example, in the Department of Social Protection, we have a prison in-reach service, for people who are coming out of prison in similar circumstances to hospitals. The Chair raised the issue of lone parents and jobseeker's transitional payment. Each case would be reviewed. If people's incomes have increased, they are working more hours and they are in receipt of the family income supplement, the rent supplement could be reviewed, but it is not a question of closing the rent. Depending on the circumstances of the case, there may be a small reduction in the rent supplement, but, again, depending on the circumstances, if it is necessary to make an increased payment to ensure that a person stays in his or her house, that will happen.

Joanna Tuffy (Dublin Mid West, Labour)
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A vote has been called in the House. Does the Deputy have a question?

Brendan Ryan (Dublin North, Labour)
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Yes, a quick one. I differ with Mr. Allen regarding whether that is the silver bullet. The threshold does not have to be increased right across the board to provide the kind of flexibility that will deliver and keep people in their homes.

Mr. Mike Allen:

We are saying that it is not working. The evidence is there, month by month. Deputy Ryan can come down and see it and explain to them why it is working, because it is not.

Brendan Ryan (Dublin North, Labour)
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There are variations around the place, but I am seeing flexibility now where I did not see it a year ago.

Mr. Mike Allen:

Yes. We welcome that.

Joanna Tuffy (Dublin Mid West, Labour)
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I am as well. I know there may be more outstanding matters, but as there is a vote in the Dáil, I will call the meeting to a close. If there are any specific questions, we might be able to liaise with the witnesses. I thank the delegates. This is an issue that we will keep under review, but it has been a very informative meeting and we have had a good debate.