Martin Cullen (Waterford, Fianna Fail)

As the Deputy well knows, responsibility for setting and enforcing housing standards rests with local authorities. I hope her commitment in this House is the same as that of her colleagues in local authorities throughout the country where the responsibility lies for housing standards. Housing standards are not the responsibility of my Department. What my Department is responsible for are people who find themselves in difficult circumstances and supporting them directly with substantial financial resources to allow them to source accommodation for themselves.

As a matter of interest, with regard to the figures, up to October 2007 the HSE received only 18 notifications of substandard accommodation and has acted on all of them. Of these notifications, 12 were in respect of existing tenancies and all rent supplement claims were terminated. Six were in respect of tenancies which did not involve rent supplement. I am happy to inform the House that we acted fully on all notifications and payments were terminated.

I accept the points made by the Deputy on some of the accommodation made available. I urge the local authorities with direct responsibility, resources and staff to deal with this issue to do so forthwith. I hope all councillors on local authorities will raise these issues at full council meetings with the manager or director responsible for housing to ensure the quality and standard of accommodation available to people, particularly those in receipt of rent supplement, is good.

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