Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick East, Labour)

I commend my colleague, Deputy Gilmore, for the motion and the manner in which he outlined the case, complete with detailed facts and figures. I hope the Minister and the Minister of State have digested the information, and I am sure Deputy Gilmore will give them a copy of his speech later if needed. I commend my colleague, Deputy Penrose, who will respond tomorrow evening from the perspective of his brief as spokesperson on social and family affairs.

I wish to concentrate on my experience as a public representative in dealing with individuals caught in this trap. This has motivated me to be very concerned about this issue. I have entered into correspondence with the Minister, Deputy Brennan, with regard to people caught in this trap. I received a long letter from the Minister, dated 25 January 2006. I have also engaged with local community welfare officers and the appeals office of the HSE mid-western area with regard to a number of individual cases.

I wish to begin by outlining to the Minister and Minister of State the type of people caught in this trap. I will refer to two in particular. One is a lady who did not get the opportunity to receive much education when younger. She is now a lone parent with a number of children. She is living on rent allowance in the suburbs of Limerick city. She had the opportunity to go on a CE scheme, which she took. She went on the CE scheme in a local impoverished community, was doing very good work and was also put on a return to education scheme.

There was a misunderstanding in previous correspondence, and she was not on a back to education scheme. Return to education is part of the FÁS-run CE schemes, whereby somebody with little or no education has the opportunity to increase literacy skills on the scheme. She was doing very good work for the community concerned and she was able to help her family. She had a rent allowance and her children were going to the local school. Everything appeared fine. She then received a letter from her community welfare officer stating her rent allowance would be cut because her combined income from her one-parent family payment and her community employment scheme money was above the €317.43 limit, which has not been increased for several years. At that point, she came to me.

I took up the issue with both the Health Service Executive mid-western area appeals office and the Minister, but no solution has yet been found to her problem. She has had to give up the CE scheme and the opportunity it offered return to education as that was the only way she could keep her house. She showed me letters from her landlord, which is not an individual landlord but a company that owns many houses, threatening to evict her if her rent was not paid after her rent subsidy stopped.

That is one example of the kind of person who is caught in this bind. In this day and age when much work is available and people are willing to participate in such schemes, I do not accept that this woman, who would have proceeded from the CE scheme into work and used the education opportunities to start a new life for herself and her family, should be put back into the poverty trap.

I wish to quote from correspondence I received from the HSE mid-western area appeals office. Having sent a copy of the reply I received from the Minister for Social and Family Affairs, Deputy Brennan, I received a letter from an appeals officer which stated:

The only reference in the reply which is relevant to the case where a Lone Parent avails of a Community Employment scheme is the fourth last paragraph [The Minister sent me a lengthy reply mentioning all the wonderful things he was doing] where the Minister states that a person may still qualify under standard rules, where their income is greater than the €317.43 limit for retention.

In the cases which have come before the Appeals Office in the recent past [I know of three people on this CE scheme who were in the same situation as my client] I can state that the combined income of One Parent Family Payment and Community Employment income is more than the €317.43 limit and under standard Supplementary Welfare Allowance rules the persons supplement is reduced or ceased.

Standard rules of assessment is where the combined income less a €60 disregard for part-time earnings is compared to the basic supplementary welfare allowance rate for the family size. Any excess earnings plus a €13 minimum contribution by the person towards their housing costs is deducted from the maximum amount of rent allowance allowed for their family size.

I can reaffirm that these cases were examined with regard to current legislation and the decisions found to be correct.

Having dealt with this officer many times before, I know that this is a nice and very caring appeals officer who will rule in favour of the person whenever she can. However, she could not do so in this case because of the legislation. I appeal to the Minister to consider this case before he introduces the Social Welfare Bill to see whether we can get people out of such poverty traps. Our motion suggests one solution.

The other person I want to mention is a lady who has been on Limerick County Council's housing list for seven years. Again, she lives in the suburbs but she is not considered as a priority in urgent need of housing because she is not homeless and she does not live in overcrowded conditions. Now that the woman's children are in school she wants to take a part-time job, but that would mean she would lose her rent allowance. She is caught in exactly the same bind as the first lady I mentioned. The county council has told her that it has no intention of housing her in the near future. She lives in what might be described as one of Limerick's more affluent suburbs where many houses are available for rent, but that is no good to her because she cannot go out to work. The county council will not house her because, for some reason, it considers it important to build houses out in the county rather than in the city suburbs.

Although we are told there are many jobs and many people coming into the country from other places — which is fine — some people are still caught in a poverty trap. There are people who want to work but cannot do so because they will not be able to keep their house if they do. As my colleagues said, not enough local authority houses are available for those who are not prioritised. The new RAS scheme that is being piloted will not address the problem because I understand — I checked the details with my local authority today — participants in the RAS scheme are still governed by the same rules determining whether they qualify for rent allowance. Therefore, that will not be a solution for them.

As my colleagues mentioned, people are having to pay private landlords over and above what they receive in rent allowance. That is because of the cap on what a person's house can cost, which depends on the size of the person's family and varies according to the limit set in each health board area. If the landlord demands more money, people on rent allowance need to pay up because they will have no house otherwise. Many people, especially those with children, find it hard to secure accommodation within the qualifying price range for rent allowance, so they are required to hand over extra money to their landlord on top of what they receive in rent allowance. I do not think that is fair. The Minister must find a solution for these people.

From my reading of the long letter I received from the Minister, who is a caring Minister, I am not sure he fully understands the traps people face. The first lady to whom I referred was involved in a community employment scheme in South Hill which I know the Minister visited some months ago. Having heard him say that people would be given the opportunity to go back and get an education, she thought the Minister really wanted her to avail of that opportunity. However, her experience was that she had to give up the opportunity to avoid giving up her home as the county council would not offer her accommodation suitable to her needs and that was available in the short term. Given the kinds of bind we have highlighted, we want a real response from the Minister.

A related issue is that people on social welfare do not qualify for the shared ownership scheme — certainly that is the case in my local authority area — and the affordable housing scheme because their income is not high enough. Similarly, applications under the tenant purchase scheme, which allows people who are already in a local authority house to apply for a local authority loan to buy their house, are refused to people on social welfare. I had a case in which a woman who cares for her intellectually disabled brother — one of them is 50 and the other is in their 40s — was told that, even though they could afford to pay the money back, the fact that they were on social welfare meant that, although they could be approved for tenant purchase, they would need to find a loan from the private sector because the local authority could not provide them with a loan.

In effect such people are caught in a bind because they cannot benefit from any of these schemes. The rent allowance limit of €317.43 means that they cannot improve their situation and contribute to the economy. That is not good for anybody. I do not see how, in the present affluent times when so much work is available, the Government can stand by and leave people stuck in a situation in which they cannot go out to work. That is the basis for the Labour Party motion.

The motion describes in reasonable terms the situation people face. It highlights the need to give attention to the rent allowance issue in the short term and to tackle what is possibly the more important long-term issue of the supply of local authority houses for those on waiting lists. Unlike others who quoted statistics, I do not know the numbers on waiting lists in the three local authorities that cross my constituency but I know the figure is sizeable. I also know that accommodation is not being provided for anything like the number of people who require it. In particular I am concerned about those who are stuck on a local authority waiting list because they are not top priority, homeless or suffering in overcrowded conditions. The rent allowance they are given provides a great deal of money for private landlords but it does not address the needs of the individuals concerned.

A further issue is the amount of public money that now goes to private landlords, many of whom do not provide houses that have the best of standards. As my colleagues have pointed out, many of those private landlords also receive subsidies from various tax schemes. The public money that goes in the direction of private landlords would be much better employed in providing housing for those who are on housing lists.

I commend my colleague, Deputy Gilmore, and I hope the Minister will respond positively to the Labour Party motion.

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