Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Socialist Party) | Oireachtas source

The Minister of State would be well advised to accept the amendment. The idea of a review might be a handy way to get her off the hook because there is no question that the housing assistance payment or HAP scheme will not work. This might be a good way for it to be reviewed in six months and then quietly ditched.

I will not labour the points that others have made, but the private landlord class in this country is motivated by profit, not by housing social tenants. At the moment, private landlords have absolutely no interest in taking on HAP, RAS - the rental accommodation scheme - or any other acronymic scheme. That is because there is a lucrative queue of people elsewhere who are not on social welfare and who can outbid for rent.

I disagree with the previous speaker that homelessness is a priority. The priority is to hide it away, sweep it under a carpet and keep people out of sight.

The Minister of State should drop her proposal because HAP will accelerate the demise of the Labour Party. She may shrug her shoulders but it used to be a tenet of Labour Party thinking that social housing would be provided for working class people who could not afford to buy a house. The Minister of State is now throwing people off housing waiting lists and putting them onto a HAP scheme. It seems to be a crude way of eliminating potentially 70% to 80% of the housing list at the stroke of a pen.

It was argued at the committee meeting earlier that there was some sort of parity between people on HAP and those in a council home, but there is none. People want security of tenure to avoid having to move their children from school to school at the whim of a landlord a year later. It is wrong, therefore, to suggest that it is a decent home.

The Bill should be scrapped for another reason. It is appalling to include deduction at source from the social welfare of council tenants and HAP participants. It is high-handed, insulting and penalises the poor. Apart from council tenants and social welfare recipients, no other group has a bill deducted from their income. People are getting into rent arrears due to austerity, all the cuts that have taken place and the increase in fuel prices.

It is sad to see a Labour Minister bringing in such a measure. It is something Margaret Thatcher would have dreamed of.

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