Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister being open to the issue. I dealt recently with case where a HAP tenant who had been a victim of domestic violence was losing her home and the local authority included them in the tenantin situ scheme. It was a bit convoluted getting there but she walked away from a property interest she had in a family home. Anybody else would ask why someone would walk away from a property interest but it was because she was so damaged by the experience and so broken by what had happened that she just could not go back to that home. She could not in any way go back to that relationship. She did not want to give that person control over her life.

In those very limited circumstances, we should provide discretion at the local authority level. I had not considered that, but I would have great confidence in local authority staff that they would do that. I agree we have to be careful and, representing a Dublin constituency, I do not want everybody in the country to be able to switch to Dublin such that people who have been on the list for many years will be pushed down the list. Nevertheless, I ask that, in these very limited circumstances, something be done to address the issue.

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