Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)

My colleague Deputy Penrose, the Minister of State with responsibility for housing, has continual contact with NAMA with a view to obtaining this social dividend for citizens and taxpayers, who are paying the cost of NAMA, through the use of properties in the NAMA portfolio which may be suitable for housing. The Minister of State has been active in pursuing this.

One of the reasons the numbers on local authority housing lists have risen is that a person must register with the housing authority in order to receive rent supplement. However, many of those receiving rent supplement are young and single. There is a great deal of work to be done in terms of examining how the system of rent supplement has developed and expanded. Some 95,000 people are currently in receipt of the supplement, amounting to a cost to the State of €500 million per year. My Department is the largest purchaser of housing services from private landlords in the State. As such, I agree that we could obtain better value for money.

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