Martin Cullen (Waterford, Fianna Fail)

As I said earlier, the review for this year has been completed. Clearly, there are issues within the system at which I would like to look. The system that is in place will run up to June next year. In the meantime, we will look at all of the issues, some of which were raised by Deputy Enright and some of which I am aware of, having interacted with many of these people who come to my clinic, as they do to those of Deputy Enright and everybody else.

What we are trying to do in the system is to genuinely support and help people who are in need of rent supplement and to use the system in such a way that nobody, in effect, should be homeless. That is the reality. I agree with the Deputy that the quality of some of the properties people are renting is appalling. People should not be given rent supplement for such properties. I was in the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government and the Deputy might recall that I set up the Private Residential Tenancies Board and brought the legislation through the House. I would like to have a more full-on system. As the Deputy is aware, landlords must notify the Private Residential Tenancies Board of the tenancies involved. I have been alerted to some loopholes in that system whereby that has been avoided in a number of cases. If it needs legislation to do that, apart from just policy change or a shift in emphasis, we should introduce it.

The other major change has been moving people from the Department of Social and Family Affairs system to local authority housing. That is beginning to gather momentum. Many people who were on rental schemes, supported by my Department, are now in housing, having been housed in social housing by local authorities, but there are aspects with which I am not happy.

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