Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I urge the Minister to consider two other issues in the review.

The first is that, traditionally, local authorities were able to apply a certain level of flexibility for households that were just above the income threshold at their existing limits. In the housing needs assessment guidance note from the Department that was issued to local authorities last year, they were told to no longer apply that flexibility. A family could, for example, be €500 a year over the threshold and would be excluded from the list.

The second issue relates to family income supplement, FIS. This payment is made because the State recognises that household earns an income that is too low to sustain itself. Local authorities do not include FIS or carer's allowance in their assessment of the rent so it makes no sense that they would take FIS or carer's allowance into account for the assessment for social housing in the first instance. Whatever about the bands, and I have a second opinion to Deputy Smith on that, I strongly urge the Minister to remove FIS and the carer's allowance from the housing needs assessment. This would mean that anybody who is in receipt of FIS would not have the FIS payment used against them for the purposes of being deemed eligible for social housing. That would equally solve the problem for some of the constituents that Deputy Brendan Smith has spoken of.

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