Willie Penrose (Westmeath, Labour)

Despite the surprisingly infantile assertions of the Minister of State and the whiff of desperation emanating from the Government benches, this is one of the most important motions to come before the House in a long time. It highlights and illustrates, if such was needed, the bankruptcy of the Government's commitment to the unpropertied classes, the men and women who do not own their own dwellings and have no prospect of doing so under this uncaring, selfish Administration which has zero commitment to their plight. It is about the tens of thousands of people in households who are not in a position to pay their rent. As my colleague, Deputy Gilmore, stated last night, it is also about Ireland's unique poverty trap which succeeds in forcing people who are already on abysmally low incomes to make a choice between a State subsidy — a rent supplement — and taking up an offer of work.

What is even more pronounced is that the Government's failure to tackle the need for social housing is forcing thousands of families to live in substandard private rented accommodation. No less an authority than Sister Stanislaus Kennedy from Focus Ireland, who does not belong to the Labour Party, stated that the Government has abandoned its historical policy of providing social housing for people who cannot afford to buy their own house. Sister Stanislaus, who has a track record in this area, is telling the Government how abysmally it has failed.

The Government has presided over a trebling of the price of housing since 1997, compelling young people and their families to rent rather than being able to purchase a house in their own right. The corollary of house prices going through the roof is that rents have also spiralled upwards out of the reach of the same families. The Government has substantial amounts of money at its disposal with which to build a decent number of local authority houses. Nobody can accuse the Labour Party in government of failing in this regard. I remind Deputies of the work of former Labour Party Ministers, Jimmy Tully, Liam Kavanagh and Emmet Stagg. They did not let people down. The Government has no respect for anyone who comes from a cottage and those of us from such a background are well aware of it.

The Labour Party would not have allowed 60,000 tenants in private rented accommodation to be forced to apply, through a means-tested procedure administered by community welfare officers, for rent supplement or allowance. The vast majority of those who receive rent supplement are social welfare recipients. As I said when debating a Bill introduced by the then Minister for Social and Family Affairs, Deputy Coughlan, she made a bad situation worse. Someone employed for 30 hours a week will no longer qualify for rent supplement. The full-time work disincentive denies an applicant assistance if one member of the couple works 30 hours per week, even though the household income is low.

It is clear the needs of the working poor who are experiencing housing affordability problems require urgent attention. These people are now literally working to pay the rent. Many of them are paying up to 40% of household income to finance their housing expenditure. While the Minister of State might not like to hear this, it is a bottom-line fact. It is here that the viciousness of the poverty trap can be seen at work. It feeds into poverty and becomes a massive disincentive to work. How can people in receipt of rent supplement take up offers of full-time work, which may not be well paid, and immediately find they will lose rent supplement thus rendering them significantly worse off? As Deputy O'Shea outlined, thousands of our constituents, those on social welfare, lone parents and others, continually tell us of this problem.

We need to change the system and replace the rent supplement with a new form of housing support as proposed by Deputy Gilmore, which would be related to housing need and the cost of housing, the circumstances of the applicants and the rent levels pertaining in a particular area in order to eliminate the poverty trap. This new housing support should not discriminate between those on social welfare and those at work. As Deputy Gilmore outlined the level of support should be tapered as income increases, which would be considerably preferable to the slash-hook method applicable now, where one's entitlement to rent supplement is severed immediately one exceeds the permitted income limit. This form of housing support is necessary in the interest of fairness and to reduce the financial hardship on working people who need to rent in the private sector. Critically, it would also act as an incentive and reward people who take up work rather than penalise them.

It is clear that a new initiative is needed. I ask all Members to support the Labour Party motion. As Deputy Stagg said it would merely represent a first step.

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