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

The Minister of State has heard all of the arguments about the HAP during the debate. We are not making up these scenarios and not scaremongering. I presume the Minister of State, like many of us, served on a local authority. We know what the situation is when it comes to housing being provided by local authorities and how the transfer lists operate in our local authority areas.

I missed part of the Minister of State's contribution the last day, but I believe she said she would bring forward a regulation to force local authorities to have a transfer list. Let us do this, but the question is what the transfer policy will be because it varies from local authority to local authority. Even if there is a policy which states HAP tenants are put on a transfer list and retain their priority rating in terms of the number of years spent on the waiting list and so forth, the reality is that we do not have the social housing stock to which to transfer people. What is going to happen? We are being asked to pass legislation to create a housing assistance payment to end poverty traps. While that is commendable, at the same time, we are being asked to take people off housing lists because they are deemed to be adequately housed. It does not make sense.

As I have said previously to the Minister of State, the rental accommodation scheme, RAS, is an absolute disaster and will form the next housing crisis. I deal with RAS tenants every week in my constituency office. When people come who do not have high quality housing, I contact the local authority and ask for the property to be reinspected as could be, say, two years since the landlord entered the RAS system. In many cases, the house is in dire need of repairs and the landlord is not carrying them out, but the local authorities state they do not have the inspectors to inspect properties.

The next question from constituents concerns whether they can come off the RAS and be housed by the local authority. While I do not know what the position is in any other council, if a person accepts a RAS property in the Cork City Council area, he or she will no longer be on a housing list. That is factual. If a person wants to transfer from a RAS property, the local authority insists on him or her entering the private market because he or she will no longer be on the housing list. If a person applies to be put on the housing list, he or she is denied because, in the eyes of the local authority, he or she has come from a situation where he or she was adequately housed and voluntarily gave up the house. Therefore, the local authority will not put him or her on the housing list.

I know of people who were in RAS properties and, because the property was in such a poor state of disrepair, were forced to leave it and ended up registering as homeless. That is happening and it is what will happen in the case of the HAP. If people are not able to remain on a housing list, eventually, in some cases, they will register as homeless.

The Minister of State is an intelligent woman and I do not mean this to be patronising, but she must see that what we are saying has merit. I do not understand why she is not taking on board the concerns raised by various Deputies. I do not know why she is bringing forward a regulation, given that the Bill must yet go before the Seanad. She could easily bring forward an amendment to the primary legislation in the Seanad to ensure people remain on the housing list; she does not need to do this by regulation or statutory instrument. If the Bill is passed today, it is not as if that is the end of it, given that it must go before the Seanad next week, where it can be amended. I encourage the Minister of State to at least consider that option. Unless this is included in primary legislation, it will not have the same weight and value. By bringing forward a regulation, the Minister of State is leaving it open to any future Minister in her position to change it at the behest of one person. If it is included in primary legislation, however, at least it would have to be done by an Act of the Oireachtas.

There are genuine concerns in this regard and they must be taken on board, in particular for the 50,000 families who will transfer to the HAP scheme. The Minister of State has said a lot about trying to end homelessness, but this will just exacerbate the problem. I encourage her to at least give a commitment to look at the issue while the Bill is progressing through the Seanad and make provision for the change through amendments in primary legislation.

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