Willie Penrose (Westmeath, Labour)

A number of counties were used to pilot this, one of which was County Westmeath. To what extent have those counties achieved the projected outcome with regard to the use of the RAS? Could people who are offered a house by a local authority in an area in which they do not wish to live decide to stay where they are under the RAS? Is there evidence of that emerging? They might wish to stay where they are for a few years rather than move to another area where they might have no relations, for example, moving from the north to the south of a county.

The objective should be that moneys that were spent on this should be used to build a significant number of houses to ensure that these people do not remain within the private rented system for a long time. Is that not the best way out of housing poverty and adverse housing conditions? Is it not an indictment of the Government that the former Minister for the Environment and Local Government, Deputy Noel Dempsey, changed the Planning and Development Act 2000? Many of the people who now find themselves in difficult circumstances would have been far better off if the Government had been sufficiently committed to carry through the objectives passed by this House in that Act.

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