Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The Minister is not living in the real world of people who are looking for housing in local authority areas. I have a similar situation to Deputy Boyd Barrett where three areas of choice can be ticked on a form and in some cases they are very broad areas. They stretch for kilometres. By and large, we are talking about families in situations where they do not have their own car and I am not sure about Dublin but in Limerick there certainly are no connecting busses. They have to get their children to school and there may not be a direct bus. While I have the greatest of respect for local authority officials, what they might deem to be a fair and legitimate offer may not be practical for the family concerned and it is too inflexible to put people back for five years. One year can be difficult enough for a family that is in a desperate situation but I genuinely do not believe that people are refusing offers for flimsy reasons. Maybe there is a very small number who do but certainly when it comes to the people I deal with, generally speaking, if they are refusing an offer of a local authority house, having been on a waiting list for a number of years, they have really genuine reasons for doing so. If there are people abusing the system, it can be dealt with even with the current regulations but it is very harsh to extend it to five years.

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