Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)

I have met with county managers and the Minister to discuss this issue. Yesterday, at Cabinet, we got the agreement to further the policy of transferring responsibility for the rent allowance to local authorities, keeping the rent allowance scheme as a short-term scheme. However, it seems that the lady and the gentleman about whom the Deputy spoke have a long-term rental requirement and they should get social housing, either through a traditional tenancy, through the rental accommodation scheme or through a housing allocation process towards which we will move. That budget would go to the local authorities. One of the issues with regard to the local authorities is that they want to be sure that they will continue to receive the income. Significant work on moving to a new system has been done by the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government and my Department and the Ministers involved. As mentioned, currently we pay €500 million a year, mostly to private landlords. While that is fine, we need to get good value for money and some long-term security for the kind of people mentioned by the Deputy. I will take into account what Deputy Pringle has said about those cases.

See this speech in context