Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

The public are anxious about this piece of legislation and it deserves proper consideration in this House and not the type of antics we have seen here.

Section 12 provides that in determining entitlement to mortgage interest supplement under the supplementary welfare allowance scheme, the amount of mortgage interest relief received by a person and any mortgage allowance or mortgage interest subsidy payable by local authority under a shared purchase scheme, will be deducted from the gross interest payable. This section also provides for definition of "institution" for supplementary welfare allowance required for the purposes of section 14.

Section 13 provides for reduced personal rate of supplementary welfare allowance of €100 per week for persons aged 20 and 21 years and €150 per week for persons aged 22 to 24 years. It also provides for a reduced rate of €100 in respect of a qualified adult to recipients of social welfare allowance aged 20 to 21 years, for couples without children. Again, I wish to make it quite clear these changes will apply only to new claims for supplementary welfare allowance made on or after 1 January 2010.

Section 14 incorporates into primary legislation an existing requirement in the regulations that to be entitled to rent supplement the applicant must be in a position to demonstrate that he or she could reasonably have afforded the rent at the commencement of the tenancy. In order to qualify for rent supplement, a person must have been a tenant or living in homeless accommodation for a period of at least six months.

Notice taken that 20 Members were not present; House counted and 20 Members being present,

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