Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I take issue with the Minister's last sentence. HAP has not been very effective. Every Deputy in the House knows that and during today's debate on housing we will point that out clearly to the Government. The Government is not listening.

The point is that one arm of the State gives a payment to people who are in receipt of low income, namely, FIS. Another arm of the State then assesses them for rent supplement, but in so doing takes FIS into account. As I said, this negates the impact of providing the support to some of the poorest people living and working in this country.

We are robbing Peter to pay Paul. It is not the only situation in which this happens. I refer to the Department's disability payments. People engaged in rehabilitative work have been told that they can work up to 20 hours a week, but Dublin City Council or other local authorities take the 20 hours into account when calculating rent. Again, it is robbing Peter to pay Paul. If we were able to calculate it, we would find the administrative costs far outweigh the cost of allowing people to hold onto their supplementary payments.

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