Frank O'Rourke (Kildare North, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

To that end, I am meeting some of his officials tomorrow on these three issues, in Dublin as far as I know. If there is clarity and flexibility in respect of the issues, it will assist positively. I am not criticising the measures at all. What I am saying is that the homeless HAP and place finder services put in place in Kildare County Council earlier this year were welcome. This was a debate we had just before the summer recess. Anything we can do to prevent people from becoming homeless is welcome. The issue, however, is the timing associated with one's ability to gain access to the upfront rent and deposit. That is the key and the point I wanted to tease out with the Minister.

Departmental officials and the council are saying one has to be very close to one's eviction date before one can gain access to the upfront deposit and rent. That is contributing to homelessness because one will not get the property the day one goes out looking for it. If one is looking for a property before one can access the fund, one is competing with someone who has the money in his or her back pocket. Therefore, if someone has notice to quit - a statutory document that meets the criteria - he or she is virtually on the home stretch to being homeless unless he or she gets another home. If one has a notice to quit in two or three months, one will have to go into emergency accommodation unless one can find a home. That is costly. We want to avoid that. Therefore, I suggest that tenants should be able to access the payment immediately on getting the notice to quit to help them to get another home between then and being evicted.

On the 30% threshold related to disposable income and the letter of guarantee, the problem is that most families need a three-bedroom semi-detached house. I know the HAP relates to the family unit but, rather than getting into that calculation, as we do not have time, we should note it equates in some cases to the rent for a three-bedroom semi-detached house. With 20% discretion, the HAP in Kildare is about €1,250. The current market value is €1,500 so a top-up is needed. We need to be able to get the local authorities and Department to agree to accepting the letters of guarantee that are coming in without forensically subjecting them to post mortem analyses, which leads to further problems.

The final issue concerns people on the housing list who are currently in HAP units. They could be in them for one, two or three years. Where these houses come up for sale, perhaps because the landlord or landlady is under financial pressure from banks or other personal reasons, is there a possibility that the Department could engage with the local authorities to ask them to purchase them? They are not purchasing the units. The families affected need to look for alternative accommodation but may not be able to gain access to any, perhaps due to the lack of supply, and end up going into hotels, not even in the county but perhaps in a neighbouring county. That is a problem. Can some clarity be brought to this? Can approval be given to the local authorities such that if a property occupied by someone getting the HAP payment is being sold, it can be purchased either by the local authority or the departmental agencies?

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