Jonathan O'Brien (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

We are in the midst of a housing crisis, as the Minister is well aware. Tens of thousands of householders are in mortgage distress, almost 100,000 people are on social housing lists, 78,000 are in receipt of rent supplement and 5,000 are designated as homeless.

As part of this Government's solution to that housing crisis, we will today conclude the Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2014, which will see the introduction of a housing assistance payment. The housing assistance payment is the most profound change in policy in regard to housing in a generation. It not only changes the way in which people will receive rent supplement, but it will transfer responsibility for providing housing to the private market on a scale never seen before. People in receipt of rent supplement for 18 months or more will be transferred to this new payment and, as a result, will be removed from council housing lists.

Some 78,000 households are in receipt of rent supplement and 50,000 of them have been in receipt of it for 18 months or more. Fine Gael and the Labour Party, by passing this Bill, will condemn those families to a future of insecurity. They are denying them a real home. They will be left at the mercy of the market. I do not know whether the Minister understands the full consequences of what will happen to those 50,000 families if this Bill is passed. Is he so out of touch that he thinks it will be anything other than a contract to reduce social housing waiting numbers?

It is no surprise that Fine Gael is in favour of such a Bill because it has no interest in social housing, and that has long been established in this House. It has very little interest in the people who live in them, given the austerity it has imposed on those families. However, for a Labour Party Minister to lead this charge is truly shocking and I am very disappointed in the Minister of State, Deputy Jan O'Sullivan. Given that 50,000 families will lose their place on housing lists and the immense distress which will be caused to those families, will the Labour Party finally stand up and be the watchdog of Fine Gael rather than the lap-dog it has become in recent years and stop this Bill from passing today?

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