Alan Kelly (Tipperary, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The Minister of State is a good person but that response, by and large, is a standard reply.

I contacted his officials, as he will be aware, this evening to let him know that I would read into the record this agreement from November 2019. I cannot state this any clearer. If the Department, which, granted this, in 2019, was the then Department of Justice and Equality, cannot honour the agreement it made with the town of Borrisokane and with the residents - I met with Maria, Mags, Martin, Keith, Tom and Robert late last week - which was a positive development, what hope have we in Ireland that the Department can be trusted to honour any other agreement? This is unique. The Government has to honour this agreement or make some attempt to honour this agreement. This is in writing, signed by a senior official, to a member of the committee who was a solicitor at the time.

We now have a situation whereby I do not want to be going down to the people of Borrisokane and saying they were sold a pup in 2019. They have done everything that was asked.

The issue here is commercial. The company has a commercial arrangement, by the way, which is up at the end of 2024, according to our information. It is now looking for eight more apartments, which, by the way, they cannot have a contract with because planning has only been granted.

The point I am trying to make here is, given the situation and given what was agreed, why can the Department not ensure for all of these people who qualify for HAP that in some way there is agreement as regards the differential between what potentially is a commercial charge by this company to the Department and what these people are able to pay with HAP? Why cannot an arrangement be made to help these people?

These are vulnerable people. There are so many children involved here. They are totally integrated into the town and the town is not going to let them down. The people I mentioned are not going to let them down. Given what was agreed because of the crisis that the Department was facing in 2019 and it wanted Borrisokane to be different, surely the Department can keep its word, honour that and find some way to ensure that these families, who were treated uniquely at the time in Ireland, are dealt with in a very fair manner.

See this speech in context