Jennifer Murnane O'Connor (Fianna Fail)
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We have all been out canvassing in recent months in the local and European elections. Housing was the biggest issue at the door.

As some of my colleagues have said, housing came up as an issue on every doorstep. In fairness, I did say, as a member of the housing committee, that we worked extremely hard and that the work being done had not yet come to fruition but that it would in the next while. Concerns were raised which I said I would take back to the Minister.

One of the biggest issues in my area - I know that I keep on about it, but it is important - is the threshold for local authority housing. It is eight years since it was changed. It has one of the lowest qualifying thresholds for local authority housing, at €27,500 for a family. In neighbouring counties such as County Laois it is €32,000. I will discuss the approved housing bodies in more detail, but a few weeks ago there was bedlam between neighbours, some of whom are within Carlow County Council's jurisdiction, while others fall within that of Laois County Council. Carlow County Council's rent cap is €180 per week, while Laois County Council's is €93 per week. Someone living in a housing estate and earning the same amount of money as his or her next door neighbour could be paying treble in rent. It is becoming a massive issue. On local radio I said I would speak to the Minister about it. It is a major issue when one of two households living in similar houses and earning €500 a week is paying almost double what the other is paying because they are in different local authority areas. We really need to look at this issue.

The Minister has been very fair on many of the concerns I have raised and come back to me on them. Yesterday a lady had to be taken off air on my local radio station because staff thought she was going to have a panic attack. The house in which she is living has been sold and she has not been able to find another. No one was helping her. I have been speaking to her since. We come across many situations where people believe they are not receiving help. I believe her problem has almost been sorted, but there are many more such cases that are not being highlighted on radio stations. However, people should not have to go on radio to highlight them. It is unfortunate that they do. More hardship cases need to be recognised, but this is not being done.

I ask the Minister about approved housing bodies. Paragraph 2.15 states a regulator for the approved housing body sector will be established to oversee the effective governance and financial management of voluntary and co-operative housing bodies. As I said to the Minister in the Seanad, approved housing bodies will become more involved. I have given him the details of two cases in which builders have been working with different agencies, with a total of 130 houses being built between the two. The local authorities are considering whether they will look at the houses being built. They are excellent builders who provide excellent housing. It worries me that we do not have a regulator who could remind the local authorities of how many are on their housing lists.

The housing assistance payment has been raised as an issue in terms of what it is costing the country. We need it because people need rental accommodation. There has to be a system whereby the approved housing bodies can go to the local authorities, perhaps through the builders. As the Minister knows, everything has to be above board and right. That is something for which I stand, but it is unacceptable that builders working with approved housing bodies are being told that the local authority is considering looking at the houses being built when we could have access to that number of houses. What is the up-to-date position on the establishment of a regulator? I believe that in neighbouring counties approved housing bodies provide a massive service for local authorities. They take people off their housing lists. This will become one of the biggest issues.

I would appreciate it if the Minister came back to me with answers to my questions about changing the thresholds in qualifying for local authority housing. That badly needs to be done. They are the issues about which I have massive concerns.