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

One of the problems is the Minister of State might genuinely believe that this will not change anything and the use of the words "shall not" does not alter anything. She may believe the word "appropriate" is enough but this will come down to the interpretation of local authority managers and not hers. Managers will see this as a giving them a green light to say this is appropriate accommodation and once that happens, applicants will be removed from the housing waiting lists. Lo and behold, the numbers will be massaged and the almost 90,000 on the lists currently will suddenly reduce to so many thousand.

The same happened with RAS. Local authority managers interpreted the implementation of the scheme their own way. I recall this argument. When people went on to the RAS, they were told they would given another RAS property at the end of their lease and they would never be evicted. They were told they would be given local authority housing if none was available but now they are homeless. From 2011 onwards, RAS recipients were removed from the housing list. The issue is not the Minster of State's interpretation but that of managers in housing departments. They will determine where people will end up and that is the problem.

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