Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I will repeat many of the points made by previous speakers. When I raised the issue of housing on Leaders' Questions two weeks ago the Taoiseach agreed with me that there is a housing crisis. I expected the Government to provide a comprehensive response to this crisis. What we have seen thus far, however, is thoroughly inadequate. It is heart-breaking that Deputies are unable to suggest any form of solution to people who visit our clinics in turmoil because they are worried about where they and their families will live the following week. A response is needed to this horror but none has been forthcoming.

The Bill is divided into five Parts. I first read Part 1, which deals with the housing assistance payment, HAP, a scheme that has been heralded as a great initiative which will address all the problems in housing. One of my criticisms of the rent accommodation payment, RAS, scheme is that it produces a poverty trap and does not encourage people to return to employment because people who start a job at entry level cannot afford to lose the payment. I refer specifically to families with children. My heart sank when I read some of the provisions relating to the housing accommodation payment. As I noted, we have a massive problem in the housing area, with 98,000 individuals and families on the housing waiting list. With 45,000 of these located in only six local authority areas, it is clear that the problem is much worse in some areas, including mine, than in others.

How will the HAP scheme work? As with the RAS, the tenant must find a house to rent and contact his or her local authority seeking a payment under the scheme. The local authority will then spend several weeks deciding whether to send a member of staff to visit the home and assess its suitability. In the meantime, the landlord will have rented the house to someone else.

The scheme is based on a view that local authorities have sufficient staff. County Meath, which has a slightly smaller population than the combined population of Limerick city and county, has 620 staff compared to a combined total of 1,074 in Limerick city and county councils. This scheme cannot be administered without more staff. The local authority areas that are worst affected by the housing crisis are also those which will have the greatest difficulty with staff, yet the Minister for Social Protection has stated she will not transfer staff to assist local authorities in administering the scheme. That is the first flaw in the HAP.

The second flaw arises from the decision to impose caps similar to those that apply to the rental accommodation scheme. I have not heard anything to indicate that additional funds will be provided for the HAP scheme, even in the short term. While I have no great desire to put large sums of money into landlords' pockets, the reality is that people are being excluded from the rental market by virtue of rent caps.

Last week, representatives of Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council, Limerick City Council and Roscommon County Council appeared before the Joint Committee on the Environment, Culture and the Gaeltacht. The spokespersons for Roscommon County Council and Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council stated that their councils have been unable to secure housing on the rental accommodation scheme without exceeding the caps. The representative of Limerick City Council stated that landlords were withdrawing from the RAS. Caps are also provided for under the housing assistance payment scheme. The Minister for Social Protection has become the minister for homelessness because she will not listen. By refusing to accept that tenants are topping up their rent payments, she is denying the problem and her part in it.

The HAP scheme will be the responsibility of the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, rather than the Minister for Social Protection. It does not matter who is responsible; what matters is that the funding provided not be sufficient. That is the second problem with the scheme.

The third problem with this legislation is that it does not provide for the construction of social housing. If rents are to be kept down, we must build new social housing. Having the working poor and people on housing waiting lists competing for the same housing causes serious damage to the economy. Basic shelter has become unaffordable in areas where people have a prospect of securing employment.

The HAP scheme is seriously flawed. When someone finds accommodation he or she must ask the local authority to have it assessed by a member of staff. If, however, a landlord has a long list of people who are willing to rent the house, as is currently the case with most accommodation, he or she will have the vacancy filled by somebody else.

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