Gino Kenny (Dublin Mid West, People Before Profit Alliance)
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I thank Ms Faughnan. Her presentation was good and answered many questions. What is the relationship between the 11,000 HAP tenants and the local authority housing list? People on the HAP scheme will ask if there is a chance they will ever have social housing in the future. There is a grey area. When I talk to officials on South Dublin County Council, they say those people are technically still on the housing list but technically they are not. We have been told that once people go on HAP they can forget about social housing. I have ideological reasons to be against the rental accommodation scheme, RAS, and HAP because ultimately it pays money to landlordism and so forth.

I do not know if Ms Faughnan can respond to this retrospectively but I have seen many people on rent allowance which was paid to the landlord but the landlord did not pay the bank and the mortgage went into serious arrears. The relieving officer or whoever did not flag this. I do not know if this is widespread but I thought it was unbelievable that it went on for two or three years at one stage. The mortgage was in arrears for €20,000 or €30,000 while the person took the rent allowance, which was taxpayers’ money and the tenant was vulnerable and would eventually be thrown out of the house.