Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I would like the Minister of State to ring the Limerick office. What is in his reply does not match in any way the experience of the applicants. That information must be out of date. It is not fair on applicants to put them in this situation. If their applications were being processed within two days I would not be on my feet raising this issue. I would not have queues of people coming into my office in tears totally stressed out by this. This is also not fair on landlords who are being left in a precarious position. It is not fair all round.

Regarding the timelines the Minister of State mentioned, it can take up to two months, and mostly it does, to process a housing application. It can take another eight or nine weeks to process a HAP application. What is happening is potentially adding to the homeless crisis.

The way HAP is being applied is problematic. In some local authorities the uplift of the 20% for a person who is in a homeless situation is not being applied. From my experience of its application in Kildare, it has been very patchy.

The delays in HAP payments are sending the message to landlords that they should stay away from this scheme. That is not the message that needs to be delivered when we know people are already in a precarious position in terms of security of accommodation.

I ask the Minister of State to check the facts he has put on the record because they do not align with the experience of people with whom I have been dealing and the situation has dramatically disimproved during the past few months. I believe the information in the reply is wrong.

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