Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The basis of the payment in Greece is whatever pensions are available.

The Deputy referred to changes in the one-parent family payment. This is the third year of the changes. For Fianna Fáil’s information, because it will apply to many of the Deputy’s constituents - perhaps he should inform himself on the issue - this year we have had contact with approximately 25,000 parents on a continuing basis, in individual and group interviews, in all Intreo offices, to open up services to lone parents. Already since February 1,250 lone parents have transitioned to family income supplement, which boosts their family income significantly. I want the Deputy to be aware of this because I am quite sure many of his constituents have benefited directly from it.

We have a huge issue in building and providing extra units, apartments and houses around the country. The Government has allocated unprecedented levels of funding, from the funds generated by recovery and people going back to work, to building, leasing and renting houses and the transfer to the housing assistance payment, HAP. As in the case of lone parents, when we set up and established 60 new Intreo offices, we moved from the Department of Social Protection simply paying money to people to it having individual interaction with people. I sat down with the most senior people in Simon who came to see me less than a month ago at my invitation in my offices for pre-budget discussions. They told me about their concerns about housing, housing allocations and homelessness. They also told me that they were particularly pleased that the one-to-one service had seen more than 2,000 cases countrywide of people who were worried about rent increases to negotiate the rent on a one-by-one basis with landlords. This was done through the sustainment protocol in operation with Simon and other organisations such as Threshold. That is the way we are approaching the problem. The Deputy should be aware of this. We have rolled out the protocol around the country through the community welfare offices, as requested.

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