Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I agree with much of what the Deputy argues in that I do not want an escalation to continue because the proportion of people who rent in the private sector has been escalating over a good number of years and the number of people on rent support is a very large part of the total number of people who rent in the private sector. Nobody of the Deputy's political persuasion or mine would see this as an ideal situation by any means. I have said it many times that we do not have the cash at the moment to provide housing in any large numbers through the voluntary sector or the local authorities. Therefore, we have to modify the current system in the best way possible in the interests of tenants. That is the reason we are moving it into the social housing space and to the local authorities and introducing other reforms such as getting rid of the poverty traps. There is a business case being made for this area. We want to learn from the seven local authorities that will be moving into HAP initially. A considerable amount of work has been done on the business case. The Deputy is correct that ideally, if we could supply social housing in a different way rather than using private landlords, we would want to do so but we cannot do so in any great numbers at present. We have to operate within the context of the current situation. We have to use this system as best as possible in the interests of tenants.

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