Dessie Ellis (Dublin North West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

It is unacceptable that some contracts are for three and four years but landlords are saying properties must be sold six months into the contracts because the banks are forcing them to do so. Under the forthcoming insolvency system, I can see this increasing because banks are putting more and more pressure on landlords to meet their obligations. The families pay the price and it is unacceptable.

In one case, ten people are in a hotel because they cannot receive rent supplement. It is totally unacceptable. It is difficult to get rent supplement for ten people but setting a level of €950 for ten people allows no flexibility in terms of the number of people. If they are going for a three-bedroom house, there are entitled to €950, irrespective of whether there are three or ten people. Even that would not be sufficient to deal with the problem. There are major problems and when the local authority takes over the role, the problems may get bigger because we are not building enough social housing. We need to bring these people into more permanent housing. In the recent past, the Minister of State said she was looking at the matter of more social housing. I would welcome that.

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