Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)

I have similar views. I fully appreciate the reason for the amendment in that there are issues that need to be addressed. I would not worry about the likely impact of the amendment. It could have a beneficial impact in that there could be a global negotiation of the rents being charged, with the Department having direct control. Now may be the best time to achieve this. Up to now, when there was a landlords' market, the practices described by Deputy Enright were rampant. They still are and, in many cases, landlords are receiving an additional payment. If they did not, they would not rent the accommodation. One problem that arises is finding a sufficient number of landlords who are willing to accept checks by community welfare officers and, as a consequence, meet the accommodation needs of the individuals concerned. As Deputy Seán Barrett said, this has arisen as a result of the failure by the Government to invest adequately in the capital housing programme. This situation has continued for ten years and is appalling. The Government resiled from the housing area and handed it over to well-meaning private housing agencies. I will not mention particular agencies but they effectively cherrypicked from the housing market with the result that the local authority, with the few houses left at its disposal, must accommodate everybody else. The result is turmoil. We have an appalling housing situation.

County Kildare has over 3,500 people on housing lists, all of whom, theoretically, would be entitled to rent supplement. We cannot get sufficient people willing to rent houses and accept the welfare cheque for the rent. That is a serious problem and nobody is tackling it. It will get much worse because, coming into that marketplace and competing with those people, will be those who, because of the economic situation, are looking for mortgage and other supports. On top of that, there are more and more emergency situations. In the course of their daily work, Deputies receive emergency calls that require urgent attention. It is no good for someone to tell us that it is all right, that the problem will be put through the system and perhaps in two months there will be a result. That is of no benefit to an unfortunate person who awaits an urgent response. These are issues that, in theory, are covered but, in fact, are not. We have difficulties with individual cases.

The danger of making the payment directly to the landlord is that a peculiar situation might develop in the future. I worry about that. What happens at present is tedious and long drawn out. There is, for example, the old practice of a person who moves from one rented accommodation to another where they had placed a refundable deposit — do Members remember the refundable deposit? I differentiate here between the good and the bad landlord. The bad one takes a look and tells the tenant he is sorry but he will not return the deposit because the paint was scraped off the door, or because something else is wrong. I have no problem with a case where there has been damage to the house resulting in the tenant losing the deposit. However, I do have problems with situations in which, on purely technical grounds, somebody decides a deposit is not refundable. Following that, the public authority, the HSE or the Department of Social and Family Affairs, can leave that person on the roadside and do nothing for him or her, or can provide a new deposit. The person does not have it and will not have the means to get it.

There are many such areas that must be addressed as a matter of urgency. They must be cleaned up in such a way as to provide for some kind of transparency and to ensure that the landlord does not have all the power. We must try to ensure that the unfortunate person who urgently requires a rent supplement can have access to it at an affordable rate, from his or her point of view and from that of the State. At the same time the person must be accountable to the State. We know, and learn on an ever increasing basis, that the State does not appear to have endless resources.

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