Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)

As I stated on Committee Stage, I believe there must be rolling reform of the rent supplement scheme and I have been involved in this since I came into this Department. I do not have a particular objection to the Deputy's proposal in respect of the tax clearance certificate and it should be considered in the ongoing review. However, it does not actually deal with the problem because if one has a tax clearance certificate before one takes on a tenant, it does not prove that one subsequently paid tax on the income one thereby receives. At present, the Department already informs Revenue of all the people who receive rent supplement from it in order that Revenue can conduct a data match to ensure that those people are actually post factum paying tax on the rent they receive. The Department now is adding to that system by stating that such people must provide it with their PPS number. Consequently, when the data match takes place, it will be much quicker and much easier to identify who are those people. I cannot disagree with much of what the Deputy said on the need to reform rent supplement.

It has to happen. It is happening and we are working on it. It is a step in the right direction. I and the Minister of State, Deputy Finneran, have had a number of meetings and will pursue our reform agenda. Regardless of how long we spend in our respective Departments it is our intention to push this agenda forward.

However, I am still not convinced that paying rent supplement to the landlord on a mandatory basis is a good idea. The tenant is the person with whom we have a relationship. He or she has the choice to nominate a landlord or anybody else to receive the payment. The amendment proposes to take that choice away from a tenant but there are very cogent reasons why that would not be a good idea.

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