Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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I think there is a world of difference if houses are being procured under the rental accommodation scheme. The local authority has a responsibility in those circumstances because it is essentially the landlord. In contrast, when a house is procured under the housing assistance payment, it is the tenant who finds the accommodation. A certain mindset is at play here with local authorities protecting themselves in case there is liability. When something is set in law there is a different mindset and it is really obvious.

There is another point. The Local Government Management Agency has a building on the quays called Local Government House. It is all for county managers. The organisation does the design for the software for systems that are rolled out so that each local authority does not have separate software and a collaborative approach each taken. If there is a collaborative approach, I cannot understand why there is no single system from which we can extract the information that feeds into a general system.

This is very big money.