Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)
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I move:

That Dáil Éireann, recognising that:

—due to high house prices, inadequate provision of social and affordable housing, and increased rents in the private rented sector, there are now approximately 60,000 households dependent on rent supplement; and

—the rent supplement as currently administered is causing serious poverty traps and disincentive to work;

calls on the Government to replace rent supplement with a new housing support which:

—would be related to housing need, income, and local renting conditions;

—would not discriminate between applicants on social welfare and those at work; and

—a recipient would not automatically lose on return to work and any reduction of which would be tapered as the recipient's income increases.

I wish to share time with Deputies Lynch, O'Sullivan and Sherlock.

This Labour Party motion directly affects 60,000 households and is of considerable interest to 200,000. It has implications for one in every five households in Dublin, Cork and Limerick and three in every ten in Galway. This motion is concerned with the needs of the men and women of no property in today's prosperous Ireland, with the tens of thousands of households and people who can not afford to pay rent and with Ireland's unique poverty trap, which locks low income workers into a choice between their State subsidy for rent and the taking up of an offer of work. The treatment of this motion in the House, in the media and among members of the public, will say much about the nature of modern Irish society.

According to the 2002 census of population, 11%, up from 7% in 1991, of housing was privately rented. The 2006 census will probably show private renting to be much higher again. The initial registration pattern in the Private Rented Tenancies Board would suggest there are now almost 200,000 private tenancies in Ireland, with approximately 120,000 individual landlords. Private renting is now the clear second to home ownership in the housing tenure league. The 2006 census will probably show there are now more than twice as many private renters in Ireland as there are tenants of local authorities.

The changed pattern of housing tenure is even more dramatic in urban areas. According to the 2004 annual report of Threshold, private renting now accounts for 29% of the housing stock in Galway, 22% in Dublin, 19% in Cork and 18% in Limerick. This pattern should not perhaps surprise us. It has been in the large urban centres that house prices have increased most dramatically in the lifetime of the Fianna Fáil-PD Government, and it has also been in the large urban areas that delivery of social housing has been most disappointing.

According to the recent report from the ESRI and Permanent TSB, the average price paid by a first-time buyer in June 1997, when the Fianna Fáil-PD Government took office, was €78,379. By the end of December last it was almost €250,000, an increase by a factor of 3.2. The result has been that young workers and families, deprived of the traditional opportunity to purchase a home of their own, have been forced to rent. Households, who might have expected to be housed by their local authority, have also been forced to rent privately for prolonged periods.

As house prices have increased, so too have rents. The rent for family-sized, three bedroom accommodation in Dublin is now €300 and €400 per week, depending on location, well above the rate of social welfare or the national minimum wage. Households who cannot afford these rents apply to their community welfare officer for a rent supplement or rent allowance. Depending on the circumstances of the applicant, the amount of the rent and the location, the community welfare officer may grant a rent allowance, which is effectively a State subsidy of the rent paid to the private landlord. The amounts paid can vary from €60 to €70 per week in Border and western counties to over €1,000 per month in Dublin.

Currently, more than 60,000 tenants in private rented accommodation receive a rent supplement, at a total cost of approximately €400 million per annum. At the beginning of the 1990s the number on rent supplement was less than 30,000 and the annual cost was less than €50 million. Put another way, there is now twice the number of households officially unable to pay their rent as there was before the Celtic tiger.

The 60,000 on rent supplement represent only a portion of those who cannot afford their rent. To qualify for rent supplement, an applicant must be on social welfare. Of the 60,176 on rent supplement, just 3,330 are in receipt of some form of employment support, such as back to work, community employment or back to education allowances. The rest are on a range of social welfare payments. I am circulating a table for the official record which gives the number of recipients of rent supplement at the end of 2005, broken down by the category of social welfare payment or employment support they receive.

Anybody in full-time employment, namely, employment of 30 hours per week or more, does not qualify for rent supplement. In the case of couples, if one member of a couple is in full-time employment, both are excluded from claiming rent supplement. This particularly nasty, anti-family provision was introduced by the former Minister for Social and Family Affairs, Deputy Coughlan, at the same time, ironically, that the Government introduced individualisation on tax. The denial of rent supplement to households where even one partner is working means there are tens of thousands of low-income families and low-income workers who are financially crippled with high rents. These are the working poor, who cannot afford to buy a home of their own, who have not been provided with social or affordable housing and who are literally working to pay the rent.

Professor Tony Fahey, Brian Nolan and Bertrand Maître, in the Combat Poverty Agency publication "Housing, Poverty and Wealth in Ireland" of 2004, state:

A key finding of the study is that affordability problems in the Irish housing system are most severe in the private rented sector. . . Private sector tenants are burdened with far higher housing expenditures than any other tenure category and experience considerable financial strain as a result.

To support the argument, their study showed that about one in five private renting households had housing expenditures above 35% of income as against 1% of house purchases.

This is now the worst poverty trap in our economy and society. It is a direct cause of poverty, a source of resentment and a massive disincentive to work. I have lost count of the number of constituents who are on social welfare and who have told me they cannot take up offers of full-time employment because they will lose rent supplement. Their accounting is absolutely impeccable.

The Labour Party motion seeks to replace rent supplement with a new form of housing support, which will be related to housing need, housing costs, the circumstances of the applicants and the rent levels pertaining in the area concerned. This new housing support should not discriminate between those on social welfare and those at work and its reduction should be tapered as income increases. Such a new form of housing support is necessary in the interest of fairness and to reduce the financial hardship on working households who have to rent in the private sector and who currently receive no support from the State. It would also act to incentivise and reward rather than penalise those who take up paid full-time employment.

Rent supplement, as we have known it, has served its time. It was introduced in 1977 to provide short-term assistance with private rent, hence, its administration by community welfare officers in what was then the health board system. The need for rent support has, however, become a permanent feature of our housing system. The Government has allowed house prices to rise beyond the means of many working families. Indeed, it has actively encouraged investment activity in residential property to the disadvantage of first-time buyers. It is a cruel irony that the taxpayer, through rent supplement, is subsidising some of the high rents paid to landlords who simultaneously benefit from tax reliefs under various property development incentives for the very dwellings which attract rent supplement.

The issue of rent supplements has been raised with the Government on a number of occasions. The social partnership agreement of 2000 — the agreement prior to the current one — described the operation of the rent supplement system, and the withdrawal of the supplement on taking up full-time employment in particular, as constituting "a severe unemployment trap". The agreement, to which the Government was a party, went on to state:

Specific consideration will be given to alleviating this unemployment trap, through the introduction of an appropriate tapering arrangement. The Government will consider this issue within the first year of this Partnership, in consultation with the Social Partners.

That was six years ago. It is worth recalling this week, when talks are underway on a new agreement, that the commitment on rent supplement affects some of the poorest families, who are caught in the wedge between being stuck on social welfare and getting employment. Six years ago, the Government committed itself in the social partnership agreement to introduce a tapering arrangement to get them out of that wedge but it has not happened. More recently, Threshold has drawn the Government's attention to the flaws in the rent supplement scheme. An excellent report by Threshold on rent supplement in Cork found that 21% of people on rent supplement are forced to pay top-up payments in addition to their required contribution. This is because the former Minister for Social and Family Affairs, Deputy Coughlan, introduced a cap, one of the cuts made in the rent supplement scheme. As a result, in practice there are now two rents, an official rent which is declared to the community welfare officer and on which a rent supplement is paid, and a top-up payment which the landlord extracts from the tenant in addition to the official amount. The recent Threshold report on rent supplements in Cork states that 21% of people on rent supplement are forced to pay a top-up payment to landlords.

The Simon Community confirmed this in a communication it sent to me in the past couple of days. It identified single people as being particularly vulnerable in this area because of the caps placed on the amount of rent supplement which can be paid to a single person who is not sharing accommodation. The reality for single people in private rented accommodation is that they either get a very poor standard of accommodation — a rip-off in itself — or if they get decent accommodation, they must pay a top-up.

The Government's response tonight may be that it is addressing these issues by introducing the new rental accommodation scheme, RAS, as reflected in the Government amendment. The House will recall that the RAS was the initiative announced by the Minister of State, Deputy Noel Ahern, in July 2004, whereby the local authority would rent accommodation from the private sector and effectively sub-let it, under the differential rents scheme, to those who had been on rent supplement for a minimum of 18 months. The scheme was to be piloted by eight local authorities, to be fully rolled out by all local authorities by the end of 2005 and fully operational by 2008. It is still at the pilot stage and it appears to be distinctly unpromising.

I have been informed that, to date, only 505 tenants have been transferred onto the rental accommodation scheme. Some 500 of these are from the voluntary housing sector, leaving only five tenants of private rented accommodation who have been moved off rent supplement on to the rental accommodation scheme. If it has taken 18 months to transfer five, how long will it take to transfer 60,000?

I understand that the reason behind the failure of RAS relates in part to a reluctance on the part of some landlords to commit properties to this privatised form of social housing and to a reluctance on the part of local authorities to take responsibility for accommodation which they consider to be sub-standard. Whatever the reasons, RAS will not solve the rent supplement problem for the foreseeable future and the rent supplement must be reformed or replaced to recognise the reality that State support for private renters will form a major part of our housing supports for some time.

The problem in the private rented sector and the immediate issue of the rent supplement would not be so acute if the Government delivered on social housing. The target in the Government's national development plan was for 35,500 local authority houses between 2000 and 2006. By the end of September 2005, 20,600 of these had been provided. By the end of 2006, the total is unlikely to reach 26,000, nearly 10,000 houses short of the Government target. The NDP also set a further target of 4,000 houses per year from the voluntary and co-operative sector. That target is coming in at 1,600 houses per year, mainly because of land acquisition and bureaucratic blockages caused by the Government.

The Minister and the Minister of State constantly heap praise on themselves for the record performance of the residential building industry. Over 80,000 houses were built in this country last year, but only 5.8% of those were social housing, down from 6.7% in 2004, 8.9% in 2003, almost 10% in 2002 and well down on the 12% recommended by the NESC.

If the Government delivered on social housing, there would be fewer trapped on rent supplement in the private rented sector. If the Government delivered on the promised affordable houses, there would be fewer working families forced into the private rented sector. The Government butchered Part V of the Planning Act and as a result only approximately 4% of the affordable houses achievable under Part V have been delivered. The Government has also failed to deliver on the promise of the 10,000 affordable houses promised under Sustaining Progress.

The Government has made it more difficult for workers and families to purchase a home of their own. It has created the circumstances whereby the State must subsidise the rents of those who cannot afford homes. This is not desirable, but it must be faced up to. Everyone has a right to a home and it is the responsibility of the State to vindicate that right. I ask the Government to accept the Labour Party motion on rent supplement and the House to support it.

Kathleen Lynch (Cork North Central, Labour)
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I express my deep appreciation to Deputy Gilmore for raising this issue and for the research he put into the motion. For as long as I know him he has had a huge interest in the issue and has extensive knowledge of it.

Many of us here may not realise that today is Valentine's day because we have probably not been reminded with gifts and flowers. People who do research on the effects of such celebrations inform me that on every Valentine's day there are more proposals of marriage and offers of cohabitation than at any other time of the year. I see from the silence that nobody here was that lucky this year.

We must move on from Valentine's day to when the gloss goes off the roses and the offer becomes a reality. How do couples set up a household here? Where do they go to live and how do they manage it? If both partners in a couple are not in full-time employment, if the bank is not generous enough or they do not have wealthy parents, they usually end up in private rented accommodation. Some 40% of all those in private rented accommodation are in receipt of rent supplement.

After the hash made by Deputy Coughlan when she was Minister for Social and Family Affairs, we were all a bit relieved when Deputy Brennan took over the Department. In my first conversation with the newly appointed Minister at the time I asked him about rent supplement and suggested introducing a sliding scale to allow people, who had no option other than to live under this draconian scheme, to go out and find work. We all know these people because they visit us every day of the week and they are usually young women. Young men do not normally leave home, perhaps because they have more sense. However, there are some men in the rent allowance trap, usually middle-aged men whose marriages or relationships have broken down who find themselves in sub-standard accommodation and on rent allowance.

Let us look at the young women in this situation. They have decided to go out and make a life for themselves, perhaps because of overcrowding or other conditions in the home. Not only must these young women suffer the indignity of sub-standard accommodation, they must suffer the glare of people who wonder why they do not work. The reason they do not work is that if they do, everything they earn is deducted, euro for euro, from their rent allowance.

A welfare officer I know has told me that the latest changes to the rent allowance scheme has made her job virtually impossible because she now measures up to the reputation of a community welfare officer. She has become hard-hearted and stony faced because whatever flexibility there was with the scheme is gone. It was removed by Deputy Coughlan when she put a cap on rent allowance. This was the most appalling cut of all.

As Deputy Gilmore mentioned, most people top up their rent allowance in paying the landlord. A statement is received from the landlord that the rent is a certain amount, and the community welfare office pays on that basis. The tenant may then pay between €20 and €40 a week to ensure he or she can stay in the accommodation. The alternative is that the tenant seeks worse accommodation and probably not get it. Several reports have been carried out on this and it is not as if the Department is not aware of such a practice.

The State has abandoned to the private sector our responsibility for housing. This Government is complicit in that, and the person directly responsible is Deputy Noel Ahern. We have decided that the private sector will do the State's job for it. Not alone will the private sector do this, but the State will pay for it to be done. We will pay the private sector not once but twice. We will support the private sector when it decides to move to another area or more lucrative opportunities.

In Cork city, there are 9,465 recipients of rent allowance. Cork City Council has in its housing stock 7,710 local authority houses. It is clear from these figures where the shift has occurred, that there has been a shift to the private sector. In many cases, one can see why people choose to live in the private sector. In many cases the accommodation is better, which is not a good reflection on the Minister's Department.

Young men and women are stuck in a bind they cannot get out of. Local authorities are no longer building houses, and if they do, their number is so few that applications are incredible. Cork City Council's housing list runs to 5,500 people seeking accommodation. That is incredible. If anybody on the Opposition benches was responsible for such a record, or the record read out by Deputy Gilmore regarding the reduction in house builds in the social sector in the past five years, we would be ashamed to come in here, let alone heckle the person telling us about it.

A study has also indicated that people on rent allowance are excluded from approximately 70% of private rented accommodation. This was done in a peculiar manner, and it is something I have noticed since examining the Threshold report. There are advertisements in, for example, The Evening Echo or the The Examiner, with subtle details such as "only professional couples need apply". In other words, people with rent allowance should not apply. If a person inquired about these advertisements and asked if rent allowance would be accepted, the response would usually be negative, as difficulties may have been experienced in the past, for example.

Emmet Stagg (Kildare North, Labour)
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The person would be caught to pay tax.

Kathleen Lynch (Cork North Central, Labour)
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That needs to be tackled. The Minister cannot allow the system of rent allowance as it now exists if houses are not built for people to have permanent homes. To allow the system to continue is to ensure people are placed in poverty and kept there for the rest of their lives.

Joe Sherlock (Cork East, Labour)
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Housing is an essential social need. The Taoiseach and his Ministers are telling people what a great country this is and how wealthy we are, but they have failed to consider the housing needs of our people. The increase in the cost of rent supplement to the Exchequer is directly linked to the lack of adequate investment by the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government in local authority housing programmes. Clear figures have been given on this by my colleagues.

The aim of any rent supplement should be to temporarily alleviate financial suffering on those within the rental sector while housing and financial needs are being met. Those who benefit from rent supplement find that, once their financial circumstances improve, they are still without a form of financial support while they are waiting to be re-housed. In the towns and villages of north Cork, where I come from, some people are waiting for between five and eight years to be re-housed. That is an awful state of affairs. In Cork East alone, Cork County Council and local town councils such as those in Fermoy, Youghal, Mallow and Cobh, are becoming ever more dependent on the Part V provision to meet local housing needs.

What is being done with the Government's money and why is it not buying the land to build local authority houses on? We have a scenario whereby private developers are meeting social needs under the Part V clause. In some cases local authorities are actively engaging with housing associations for the provision of social housing responsibilities under the Part V provision. Housing associations do not allow for the eventual purchase of the house. Rents relative to those of the local authority are marginally higher while no opportunity arises to purchase the house.

The dependency on rent supplement will only end when a significant investment is made in the local authority housing programme. The market for housing means housing support as outlined by my colleagues is more equitable and allows for a greater transition period while people readjust. Private investors realise there is a ready made market comprising of rent supplement dependent families and individuals. The increase in house prices has forced more people on to housing lists. It is essential to provide housing for our people. This is not being done by the Government, and I support this motion wholeheartedly. Many adjustments must be made.

Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick East, Labour)
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I commend my colleague, Deputy Gilmore, for the motion and the manner in which he outlined the case, complete with detailed facts and figures. I hope the Minister and the Minister of State have digested the information, and I am sure Deputy Gilmore will give them a copy of his speech later if needed. I commend my colleague, Deputy Penrose, who will respond tomorrow evening from the perspective of his brief as spokesperson on social and family affairs.

I wish to concentrate on my experience as a public representative in dealing with individuals caught in this trap. This has motivated me to be very concerned about this issue. I have entered into correspondence with the Minister, Deputy Brennan, with regard to people caught in this trap. I received a long letter from the Minister, dated 25 January 2006. I have also engaged with local community welfare officers and the appeals office of the HSE mid-western area with regard to a number of individual cases.

I wish to begin by outlining to the Minister and Minister of State the type of people caught in this trap. I will refer to two in particular. One is a lady who did not get the opportunity to receive much education when younger. She is now a lone parent with a number of children. She is living on rent allowance in the suburbs of Limerick city. She had the opportunity to go on a CE scheme, which she took. She went on the CE scheme in a local impoverished community, was doing very good work and was also put on a return to education scheme.

There was a misunderstanding in previous correspondence, and she was not on a back to education scheme. Return to education is part of the FÁS-run CE schemes, whereby somebody with little or no education has the opportunity to increase literacy skills on the scheme. She was doing very good work for the community concerned and she was able to help her family. She had a rent allowance and her children were going to the local school. Everything appeared fine. She then received a letter from her community welfare officer stating her rent allowance would be cut because her combined income from her one-parent family payment and her community employment scheme money was above the €317.43 limit, which has not been increased for several years. At that point, she came to me.

I took up the issue with both the Health Service Executive mid-western area appeals office and the Minister, but no solution has yet been found to her problem. She has had to give up the CE scheme and the opportunity it offered return to education as that was the only way she could keep her house. She showed me letters from her landlord, which is not an individual landlord but a company that owns many houses, threatening to evict her if her rent was not paid after her rent subsidy stopped.

That is one example of the kind of person who is caught in this bind. In this day and age when much work is available and people are willing to participate in such schemes, I do not accept that this woman, who would have proceeded from the CE scheme into work and used the education opportunities to start a new life for herself and her family, should be put back into the poverty trap.

I wish to quote from correspondence I received from the HSE mid-western area appeals office. Having sent a copy of the reply I received from the Minister for Social and Family Affairs, Deputy Brennan, I received a letter from an appeals officer which stated:

The only reference in the reply which is relevant to the case where a Lone Parent avails of a Community Employment scheme is the fourth last paragraph [The Minister sent me a lengthy reply mentioning all the wonderful things he was doing] where the Minister states that a person may still qualify under standard rules, where their income is greater than the €317.43 limit for retention.

In the cases which have come before the Appeals Office in the recent past [I know of three people on this CE scheme who were in the same situation as my client] I can state that the combined income of One Parent Family Payment and Community Employment income is more than the €317.43 limit and under standard Supplementary Welfare Allowance rules the persons supplement is reduced or ceased.

Standard rules of assessment is where the combined income less a €60 disregard for part-time earnings is compared to the basic supplementary welfare allowance rate for the family size. Any excess earnings plus a €13 minimum contribution by the person towards their housing costs is deducted from the maximum amount of rent allowance allowed for their family size.

I can reaffirm that these cases were examined with regard to current legislation and the decisions found to be correct.

Having dealt with this officer many times before, I know that this is a nice and very caring appeals officer who will rule in favour of the person whenever she can. However, she could not do so in this case because of the legislation. I appeal to the Minister to consider this case before he introduces the Social Welfare Bill to see whether we can get people out of such poverty traps. Our motion suggests one solution.

The other person I want to mention is a lady who has been on Limerick County Council's housing list for seven years. Again, she lives in the suburbs but she is not considered as a priority in urgent need of housing because she is not homeless and she does not live in overcrowded conditions. Now that the woman's children are in school she wants to take a part-time job, but that would mean she would lose her rent allowance. She is caught in exactly the same bind as the first lady I mentioned. The county council has told her that it has no intention of housing her in the near future. She lives in what might be described as one of Limerick's more affluent suburbs where many houses are available for rent, but that is no good to her because she cannot go out to work. The county council will not house her because, for some reason, it considers it important to build houses out in the county rather than in the city suburbs.

Although we are told there are many jobs and many people coming into the country from other places — which is fine — some people are still caught in a poverty trap. There are people who want to work but cannot do so because they will not be able to keep their house if they do. As my colleagues said, not enough local authority houses are available for those who are not prioritised. The new RAS scheme that is being piloted will not address the problem because I understand — I checked the details with my local authority today — participants in the RAS scheme are still governed by the same rules determining whether they qualify for rent allowance. Therefore, that will not be a solution for them.

As my colleagues mentioned, people are having to pay private landlords over and above what they receive in rent allowance. That is because of the cap on what a person's house can cost, which depends on the size of the person's family and varies according to the limit set in each health board area. If the landlord demands more money, people on rent allowance need to pay up because they will have no house otherwise. Many people, especially those with children, find it hard to secure accommodation within the qualifying price range for rent allowance, so they are required to hand over extra money to their landlord on top of what they receive in rent allowance. I do not think that is fair. The Minister must find a solution for these people.

From my reading of the long letter I received from the Minister, who is a caring Minister, I am not sure he fully understands the traps people face. The first lady to whom I referred was involved in a community employment scheme in South Hill which I know the Minister visited some months ago. Having heard him say that people would be given the opportunity to go back and get an education, she thought the Minister really wanted her to avail of that opportunity. However, her experience was that she had to give up the opportunity to avoid giving up her home as the county council would not offer her accommodation suitable to her needs and that was available in the short term. Given the kinds of bind we have highlighted, we want a real response from the Minister.

A related issue is that people on social welfare do not qualify for the shared ownership scheme — certainly that is the case in my local authority area — and the affordable housing scheme because their income is not high enough. Similarly, applications under the tenant purchase scheme, which allows people who are already in a local authority house to apply for a local authority loan to buy their house, are refused to people on social welfare. I had a case in which a woman who cares for her intellectually disabled brother — one of them is 50 and the other is in their 40s — was told that, even though they could afford to pay the money back, the fact that they were on social welfare meant that, although they could be approved for tenant purchase, they would need to find a loan from the private sector because the local authority could not provide them with a loan.

In effect such people are caught in a bind because they cannot benefit from any of these schemes. The rent allowance limit of €317.43 means that they cannot improve their situation and contribute to the economy. That is not good for anybody. I do not see how, in the present affluent times when so much work is available, the Government can stand by and leave people stuck in a situation in which they cannot go out to work. That is the basis for the Labour Party motion.

The motion describes in reasonable terms the situation people face. It highlights the need to give attention to the rent allowance issue in the short term and to tackle what is possibly the more important long-term issue of the supply of local authority houses for those on waiting lists. Unlike others who quoted statistics, I do not know the numbers on waiting lists in the three local authorities that cross my constituency but I know the figure is sizeable. I also know that accommodation is not being provided for anything like the number of people who require it. In particular I am concerned about those who are stuck on a local authority waiting list because they are not top priority, homeless or suffering in overcrowded conditions. The rent allowance they are given provides a great deal of money for private landlords but it does not address the needs of the individuals concerned.

A further issue is the amount of public money that now goes to private landlords, many of whom do not provide houses that have the best of standards. As my colleagues have pointed out, many of those private landlords also receive subsidies from various tax schemes. The public money that goes in the direction of private landlords would be much better employed in providing housing for those who are on housing lists.

I commend my colleague, Deputy Gilmore, and I hope the Minister will respond positively to the Labour Party motion.

Noel Ahern (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail)
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I move amendment No. 1:

To delete all words after "Dáil Éireann" and substitute the following:

"acknowledges the achievements of the Government in:

—increasing housing supply as the key response to the broad range of housing needs;

—ensuring that over 500,000 houses, equivalent to one third of Ireland's total housing stock, have been completed in the past 10 years;

—facilitating the 11th successive year of record house completions through the addition of 80,954 in 2005;

—providing SWA rent supplement payments to 60,000 people and introducing the rental accommodation scheme, RAS, to provide improved and more secure arrangements for SWA rent supplement recipients with long-term housing needs, thereby reducing dependency on the supplementary welfare allowance scheme;

—putting in place a range of initiatives to expand the supply of affordable housing including the establishment of the affordable homes partnership to address requirements in the greater Dublin area;

—modernising and improving the operation of the private rented sector through the introduction of new legislation and the establishment of the Private Residential Tenancies Board;

—developing and implementing an integrated strategy on homelessness, effective programmes for Traveller accommodation and an expanded role for the voluntary and co-operative housing sector; and supports the Government vision for housing as set out in the new housing policy framework

—Building Sustainable Communities, including plans to substantially expand investment over the coming years and develop a range of initiatives so that the maximum number of people can access high quality and affordable accommodation; and endorses the action set out in the framework to provide appropriate accommodation responses for those on rent supplement who can benefit from the rental accommodation scheme, including contributing to addressing issues relating to the elimination of poverty and employment traps."

I propose to share time with the Minister for Social and Family Affairs, Deputy Brennan. I welcome the opportunity to outline the very considerable successes this Government has achieved since 1997 in increasing investment in housing, expanding the range of housing supports and generally facilitating a vibrant housing market. It has been perhaps the most remarkable era for house building since the foundation of the State, a circumstance helped in no small measure by the priority given to housing by this Government. I apologise if I sound like I am congratulating myself but I am only being factual.

Over the past ten years housing demand has been both a cause and effect of our prospering economy. The economic factors giving rise to increased demand are real and, for the most part, welcome. The story is one of unprecedented and sustained economic growth, high employment creation with record numbers of people at work, including an increase of 90,000 in 2005 alone, growth in disposable income that has been stronger than in any other industrial country, low inflation and low interest rates.

Along with economic prosperity has come significant demographic change. Ireland's population has increased by around 15% in the last decade, with growth in the number of households much higher at 41%. The result has been to drive the demand for housing beyond a level at which it could be met at traditional levels of supply.

These economic and demographic trends are part of our continuing economic success. We must view increased demand for housing as the inevitable consequence of a dynamic economy and a changing society. Embracing these positives, this Government has focused on gearing supply to meet rising demand. We have delivered and will continue to deliver.

In 1996 less than 34,000 new homes were built. In 2005, the 11th year of record house completions, there were over 80,000. To put the scale of activity into perspective, over one third of the country's houses will have been built in the past ten years. Crucially, we are delivering where demand is most acute and have increased supply to 18,000 units in the greater Dublin area, by some 7%.

All indications suggest that high levels of housing output will be required into the future. Recent projections from the CSO suggest that, in the period to 2020, Ireland's population will increase by approximately 1 million people. A population increase of this magnitude requires that we maintain a high level of housing output with an annual supply of 58,000 units between now and 2020.

What has been achieved has been remarkable and the Government will continue to provide investment in public infrastructure to underpin a strong housing market. We also understand that the housing market on its own cannot solve all our housing issues. There is a role for direct State intervention in support of those who cannot afford to purchase or rent suitable accommodation from their own resources. The provision of this support remains a key objective of Government.

In the last budget €54 million additional capital funding was provided for housing in 2006, which means an additional €100 million available this year for social housing, and the capital envelope has been increased which amounts to €300 million extra over the next three years. That will take total Exchequer funding for social housing over the next three years to €4 billion, which is almost 20% higher than spending in the last three years. Deputy Gilmore mentioned the national development plan, but spending is up by 8% over what was projected, notwithstanding the output statistics.

Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)
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Spending went up everywhere.

Noel Ahern (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail)
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It did not.

Kathleen Lynch (Cork North Central, Labour)
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Where did that money go?

Noel Ahern (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail)
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It did not produce all the units that were forecast but the money is there.

The local authorities almost have a free rein to build what they like. Deputy Sherlock said they were sitting on their backsides relying on Part V arrangements to bring forward social units. We are giving them all the money they want for their action plans so they should get on with it.

Kathleen Lynch (Cork North Central, Labour)
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It is the Minister's job to oversee what they are doing.

Noel Ahern (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail)
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To be fair, social housing completions are up by approximately 600 units and starts are up by approximately 900, so they are delivering. Deputy Sherlock obviously thinks they are not and there is a danger they take the lazy option and wait for activity to come about through Part V. It might have been stop-start in the past but it is not now so they should get on with it. The outturn for last year is quite impressive.

The new housing policy framework document, published before Christmas and entitled Building Sustainable Communities, provides the framework for a wide-ranging review of housing policy. In the new statement we set out our goals for the coming years. Above all, this will focus on achieving high quality sustainable developments in urban and rural areas.

The Government remains committed to the objective of expanding the opportunities for as many households as possible to own their own homes. For those who cannot afford to access adequate housing without assistance we have increased the level of support through a range of affordable housing initiatives. These include the shared ownership scheme, the 1999 affordable housing scheme, affordable housing through Part V arrangements, the affordable housing initiative and a proposed new tenant purchase scheme which, from January 2007, will allow for the sale of local authority flats under certain conditions. As I said at Question Time today, while we hear about the average prices of new and secondhand homes, there is good value in the affordable market in the Dublin suburbs. Two-bedroom houses in Tallaght and Clondalkin are available for €142,000 and three-bedroom houses for €172,000. Many people in relatively ordinary jobs are going for those and their needs are being met. The waiting lists are down by 9.5%.

Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)
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The Government changed the way it counted them.

Noel Ahern (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail)
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People in a higher income bracket have left local authority housing because they have gone for affordable units, which cater for a substantial need.

Housing is a local issue, and we must recognise that needs and responses to those needs must be conceived and designed to take account of this. Recognising the particular affordability issues in the Dublin area, the Government established the affordable homes partnership last year to co-ordinate and add impetus to the delivery of affordable housing in and around the capital. The partnership is chaired by Des Geraghty, is now well-established and is making good progress on the implementation of its work programme.

I mentioned the pilot land swap of a site at Harcourt Terrace last year, and the 193 housing units secured in exchange for the site in the south-west of the city are now available at reasonable prices. The partnership has also advertised a further land swap involving a site on Nutley Lane, and where the swap mechanism is appropriate it will be employed in advancing other projects in the coming months. Crucially, the partnership also has a role in bringing forward additional land for housing development. It invited submissions in November 2005 from parties interested in providing and developing land primarily for affordable housing and the submissions received on foot of this are now being considered.

I also acknowledge the work done by the voluntary and co-operative housing sector in meeting social housing needs. With the increase in the capital limits announced recently I expect that sector to receive a boost. Altogether the needs of some 14,000 households will be met from funding for social and affordable housing measures in 2006.

Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)
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Pure fantasy.

Noel Ahern (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail)
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This compares with 8,500 seven or eight years ago. The completion figures for last year are good. Deputy Lynch mentioned the number on the waiting list in Cork city, but nationwide the list is down 9.5% from three years ago.

Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)
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The Government changed the way the figures were counted. It juggled with them.

Noel Ahern (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail)
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The figure is now approximately 43,000 households, and many of them will be single people though we do not have the detail yet.

Kathleen Lynch (Cork North Central, Labour)
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They are just those who are eligible. There are a further 3,000.

Noel Ahern (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail)
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If Deputy Lynch is friendly with any councillors will she press them on the matter? They can build what they like now.

Kathleen Lynch (Cork North Central, Labour)
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That is the Minister of State's job.

Noel Ahern (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail)
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I am doing my job. I was trying to provide the Deputy with a little information because she does not seem to be in receipt of the facts. There is no hold up. I have been long enough in this business to remember occasions under previous Governments when funding was not available. The standard excuse given was that it was buried in the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government but such situations no longer obtain. Plans by local authorities, whether for new buildings or regeneration, are quickly approved and the authorities have almost free rein on these matters. We operate by the action plans they draw up and reflect their wishes.

The Government has repeatedly shown its commitment to the development of an active and sustainable private rented sector which offers security of tenure, flexibility and good quality affordable accommodation. With that in mind, the Residential Tenancies Act 2004, enacted in July 2004, provides for major reform of landlord and tenant law.

In recent years a significant number of households, including families on local authority housing waiting lists, have had to rely on rent supplement. It is important to acknowledge that change is needed over time and, for many of these households, what may once have been a short-term income support has evolved into a longer-term housing need. To break the cycle of dependence on rent supplement and further expand our response to changing housing needs, the Government last year introduced the rental accommodation scheme. This will be a major initiative——

Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)
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It is not working.

Noel Ahern (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail)
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Give it time and it will address some of the poverty traps raised by Deputy O'Sullivan.

Kathleen Lynch (Cork North Central, Labour)
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How much time?

Noel Ahern (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail)
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The key objectives of the new scheme are to provide an additional source of good quality rental accommodation for persons in need of housing support, bring about a reduction in long-term dependence on rent supplement and ensure equity of treatment between local authority and RAS tenants by enabling RAS recipients to seek and gain employment without loss of housing supports. That will happen in the future.

Kathleen Lynch (Cork North Central, Labour)
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Why can it not happen now?

Noel Ahern (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail)
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We cannot just switch over because it will take a couple of years to develop.

Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)
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What will the Government do in the meantime?

Noel Ahern (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail)
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The scheme will help to address the issue of homelessness by making independent living a more realistic option through the use of RAS as part of a wider tenancy sustainment programme and will bring about a real improvement in standards in the private rented sector through the sole use of good quality accommodation for RAS tenants. I accept that only 700 people have moved across to date and that most of those are in the voluntary sector. A problem arising for early transferees is that the quality of accommodation is deficient and some people in receipt of rent allowance refused to transfer over because the accommodation was not good enough. In time, however, this will be a great system for improving the quality on offer to social tenants. Basically, we are telling the landlord to bring their properties up to proper standards because it is only right and proper that social tenants, whether of local authorities or on rent allowance, are in good accommodation.

Kathleen Lynch (Cork North Central, Labour)
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Why should that matter? It does not matter to the Department of Social and Family Affairs because it will still pay.

Noel Ahern (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail)
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Certain problems arose over the years and this is our opportunity to sort them out. The new system will enhance the capacity of local authorities to respond to demands for a graduated and flexible system of housing supports to meet long-term needs. RAS is a supply based social housing support designed to cater for the long-term housing needs of rent supplement recipients. It is estimated that approximately 60,000 households are in receipt of rent supplement, just over half of whom have been on rent supplement for more than 18 months.

The success of RAS will depend on a strong rental market. Local authorities have a range of options for tapping into this market, including entering into direct contractual arrangements with existing accommodation providers in the private rental sector, bringing forward existing and new accommodation from the voluntary and co-operative housing sector and securing additional accommodation through new build PPP projects, which would be financed, developed and operated on a long-term basis by the private sector but made available exclusively for households nominated by local authorities.

The rental accommodation scheme should be seen as part of a graduated range of housing supports and an additional supply option for authorities. Households can indicate their preference to be accommodated by local authorities under RAS, apply for local authority housing or be considered for both. It is important that tenants are afforded choice as only 25% of rent supplement recipients have expressed an interest in being accommodated through local authority housing. The new approach provides an active, supply based approach to meet long-term housing need instead of depending on short-term rent allowance payments.

Roll-out has commenced in 15 authorities representing over 70% of the transferable households on rent supplement and all remaining local authorities are due to implement the new arrangements by mid-2006. The Government has allowed four years, to the end of 2008, to complete implementation of the scheme. I see this approach to meeting long-term social housing need as facilitating a more flexible response by housing authorities that will at the same time help improve accommodation standards in the private rented market and will give more choice and greater long-term security to tenants. The scheme marks a fundamental change in housing policy and will improve co-ordination of housing activities by strengthening the role of local authorities in housing provision and support services. In future years, RAS will be viewed as one of the most significant Government interventions in housing.

Beyond the provision of housing, a requirement will remain for the provision of short-term income support to households unable to meet their immediate accommodation needs from their own resources. My colleague, the Minister for Social and Family Affairs, Deputy Brennan, will speak to that matter.

Séamus Brennan (Dublin South, Fianna Fail)
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I want to refer to matters raised by Deputy Gilmore and others. There is a case for reforming rent allowance because the reality is that the State is paying approximately €400 million per year on a temporary basis to house 60,000 people. The questions arising from that issue are obvious. For example, would it be preferable to put that money into permanent housing? If one went to the local bank with €300 million per year, it would probably write a cheque for €6 billion, which would build a lot of houses. What, however, is to be done with the people who have fallen on hard times without notice? They have to be looked after in some way. I am certainly open to reforming rent allowance in some way but it must be done in a practical and sensible manner.

When solving one problem, we do not want to create further trouble. For example, it is often suggested that people have to pay top-up payments because the rent is too high and, therefore, rent allowance is too low. However, we account for 40% of the rent in the State and much of the rent in Dublin is set by landlords at the rate we pay, so rental costs would be driven up if I raised the limits tomorrow. I am slow to increase the allowance because the landlord would grab it. I want it to be available to people for genuine purposes but I do not know whether a solution can be found by raising the caps ever higher. Reforms are needed but that on its own is not a good answer.

As the Minister of State, Deputy Noel Ahern, mentioned to me earlier, in some cases, such as single men in different parts of the country, the cap may not be as high as it should be. On the other hand, the allowance of approximately €1,200 in Dublin is as high as it can safely be without pushing prices through the roof. Maybe we can juggle it around between the two extremes but we have to be careful when doing so.

There were calls from the Opposition for more State support for private renters but the rental scheme exists to address just such a need. The solution is the provision of permanent housing rather than to condemn 60,000 to permanent rent allowances. It is a short-term income support measure. The Deputy's point about tapering is correct and we have been trying to deal with that issue. I am fully committed to putting that in place more aggressively. I accept that the higher the rent allowance, the greater the disincentive for people to go back to work. People visit my clinics who say that the rent allowance is very good but if they go back to work, they begin to lose the supplement. If we increase rent allowance further, that argument will be made to all Deputies in their clinics even more strongly than at present. A doubling of the allowance or a removal of the cap might be welcomed but it would mean that fewer people would be able to go back to work because the higher the allowance, the harder it would become to put effective tapering measures in place.

I want to ensure that we have an effective tapering mechanism in place and that rent allowance is a temporary measure rather than a permanent response. The allowance should help people through a difficult period and should be sufficient to help those who need it, in particular, lone parents for whom there is a higher than usual disregard.

My colleague, the Minister of State, Deputy Noel Ahern, has outlined Government policy in the housing area and we both accept that there is a need for joined-up Government in this area. We need more co-ordination between the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government and the Department of Social and Family Affairs to get the balance right between providing physical housing, either private or social, and providing rent allowance for those who are in need. Among the 60,000 recipients of the allowance, many are in desperate need but there is some evidence of the system being played by a number of people. Such people move from one form of rented accommodation to another without tackling the fundamental issue.

In an ideal world, I would prefer to give the €300 million in mortgage support to people to buy their own houses. If I could organise that, I would prefer to do it, quite honestly, rather than giving it in rent to landlords who can take the money down to a bank and arrange their next project on foot of the rent roll which they can guarantee from my Department. It would make much more sense if I could say the budget is €300 million, we would buy some houses and put families on the property ladder. That would be a much better solution.

We want effective tapering in place and will not tamper with the cap until we are convinced that it will increase prices. We are trying to move towards a lasting solution and the Minister of State, Deputy Noel Ahern, has laid that out, namely, moving people out of the rent allowance scheme and onto the housing schemes as quickly as possible. That is the right road to take.

A number of Deputies referred to poverty traps and wedges. As earnings and rents increase, it becomes more difficult for the welfare system to keep up. As a result, we are constantly creating new wedges or traps and if we try to eliminate them with increases, the effect is a spiralling one whereby such traps become more acute but at a higher level. We must be careful that in solving a specific issue in this area, we do not create other problems, for example, making an allowance so good that people cannot possibly go to work. We must not send out a signal to people that we do not want them to go to work, back to education or to get themselves a house on the open market if they so wish. That is not the signal we want to send out. We want to help people in genuine need but we do not want to comfort people so that we cannot get them to a point where they can afford a house or to go back to work or education. All Members of this House know that housing, work and education are the permanent solutions in this area. Everything else is a stop-gap and a temporary solution. We must be very clear about that.

Like the Minister of State, Deputy Noel Ahern, I wish that the level of tenant placement under the rental accommodation scheme was higher but I note that the rate of transfer has increased over the past three months. That scheme is being pushed within the Department so there should be more progress in that area over time.

There is no question of people being left without housing support. We will continue to pay the rent supplement until we can find other solutions, but it must be remembered that the rent allowance is only a safety net within the overall social welfare system. It was never meant to be anything other than that. It was not meant to be a permanent allowance. The rent allowance scheme itself may be permanent but the day that we decide it is a permanent allowance for a family or an individual is the day we give up on them, which is not fair. We must activate such families if we can. If they have the option, we must genuinely try to move them forward into housing and employment.

Rent allowance is available to people who do not qualify for payments under other State schemes. Applicants must satisfy a means test to avail of the allowance. We are determined to provide incentives to assist people to become more financially independent, especially through employment, education and training. In that regard, a number of measures have been introduced to help those in the transition from welfare to work, for example, the back to work programme, the special means disregard and the tapered withdrawal of benefits as earnings increase. The means disregard is particularly important for people on rent supplement. The first €60 of additional income from part-time work, community employment or training is disregarded in full and half of the next €30 is disregarded. This means that a person can be up to €75 per week better off if he or she takes up part-time work, community employment or training.

Alternatively, people taking up employment or another opportunity may qualify to retain certain rent supplement and other secondary benefits in total or in part, subject to certain conditions. This is particularly beneficial to people taking up full-time work having been out of the workforce for 12 months or more. As Deputy O'Sullivan has said, an income limit of €317.43 per week applies in these cases and I appreciate that needs to be improved. The rent supplement retention income limit has not changed for some time and I will give it the attention it now deserves.

However, significant other improvements have been made to the means test subsequently which impinge on that. The back to work allowance and family income supplement, in cases where one or both of these are in payment, are disregarded in the assessment of means. PRSI and reasonable travelling expenses are also disregarded in the means test. Under these special arrangements, rent supplement may be retained for up to four years on a tapered basis, that is, 75% of supplement in year one, 50% in year two and 25% in years three and four. In effect this means that a person on a community employment scheme or other back to work scheme whose household income is above the €317.43 limit may still qualify for rent supplement under the standard rules. They may be allowed to earn above that limit because of certain rules and other disregards within the system, especially for those aged over 65 years.

Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick East, Labour)
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They do not in practice. The Minister should examine that area again. There are some people who are genuinely caught——

Séamus Brennan (Dublin South, Fianna Fail)
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I will examine the issue, as I see the point the Deputy has made. More than €400 million is spent under the scheme per annum. The number of recipients of rent supplement has almost doubled in a decade. In 1995, when the scheme began, the figure was 32,000 but today it is more than 60,000. Of the 60,173 people in the scheme, more than half, or 33,000, have been in it for 18 months or more, which shows some hardening of the stock, if I may put it that way. That is my concern, that people would get settled in the scheme.

David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael)
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I congratulate the Labour Party on bringing forward this important motion tonight. So far the quality of the debate has been excellent. This is an important issue that impinges on more and more people every day. The Minister in his speech acknowledged that the number on rent supplement has doubled in ten years from 32,000 in 1995 to 60,000 in 2005. That shows how important the issue is and the demands on people in the system who depend on rent supplement, which is supposed to be an emergency payment.

The new rental accommodation scheme is interesting. It was hoped that by the end of the last year there would be 5,000 on it but at present there are only 700 on it. The Department gave out €19 million last year and will do the same this year. Has the Government estimated the total cost of this scheme? Will it cost the same as rent supplement, which is running at €400 million per annum?

The Minister mentioned long-term housing, which is a basic social need. The current scheme is temporary and this is more permanent, but I still feel people who are renting have a problem looking at that property as a home for a lifetime. The quality of housing provided by housing associations and the way they are managed are impressive. People can make their homes in such housing.

Has the Minister of State at the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government with responsibility for housing asked the local authorities how many empty houses they have on their books and has he asked them to make them available? There are two housing officers to cover the whole of County Cork and it takes them between six and nine months to visit each town and carry out an assessment. People must wait for the county council to carry out an assessment. They are working hard but there is a fault in the system.

Many local authority housing estates need to be upgraded and managed. The Minister has said on a number of occasions that local authorities can do what they like and that people should talk to local councillors. Local authorities, however, are not accountable to anyone. Since the dual mandate was abolished, local authorities do not have to answer our questions. Members of this House can ask a Minister a question and he is therefore democratically accountable but that is not the case in local authorities. We must address this because we are so dependent on what happens locally. Councillors cannot demand accountability in the same way we can.

Many housing estates are being built for rental purposes. The Government is pumping money into various types of rental systems and it is unsustainable in the long term. We need more infrastructure, schools and community halls in these estates.

Older, single people face difficulties on housing lists. In most local authorities there is no list, people are assessed according to need and then matched with what is available. There are criteria, such as overcrowding and the state of current accommodation, but older, single people are often at the bottom of that list. I have come across older, single women lately who need accommodation in sheltered housing of some type.

I congratulate the Labour Party on this motion. As the Ministers have acknowledged, this issue is growing in importance. The mechanisms in place are not the way to go on a long-term basis. If all the rent supplement houses end up on the new scheme, how much will it cost?

Pádraic McCormack (Galway West, Fine Gael)
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The Minister for Social and Family Affairs in unscripted remarks outlined disadvantages to the present scheme and potential improvements. I welcome the Minister speaking off the cuff because it gives us a real insight into his thinking. Often we do not know who writes the scripts and what the Minister thinks of them. We must wait until the transcript of the Minister's remarks is available to analyse them in detail.

The Minister of State at the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government spoke of the importance of tenant choice; I presume he meant those on rent supplement. They have no choice, with €400 million being spent on rent supplement and the local authority waiting lists up to seven years long. They must remain on the supplement because there is no other way out. They cannot afford to buy a house. I dealt with a mother of three who could not get a house after six years because someone with four children had been on the waiting list for seven years and she had to get the house. The woman with three children had no choice but to stay on the list.

This motion deals with the high cost of housing. The Government has constantly refused to accept its responsibility for the high cost of housing. It is directly responsible for adding taxes, levies and other charges, amounting to €108,000, to every new house. That is a heavy burden on the person trying to buy a new house but the Government is doing little to alleviate the situation and its policies are making matters worse. It abolished the first time-buyer's grant, increased VAT by 1% on building materials and imposed development charges, adding up to €15,000 to the price of a house. The average price of a house is €265,000, an increase of approximately €20,000 in one year. The Government bears much of the responsibility for this development with average house prices increasing by roughly €180,000 over the lifetime of this and the previous Administration, while the number of homeless people stands at 5,500.

The Government toyed with the idea of reducing stamp duty for first-time buyers in the previous budget when it decided to exempt secondhand houses valued at less than €317,500 from stamp duty. Given that virtually every house sale in Dublin achieves more than this figure, few first-time buyers of second-hand houses qualify for the exemption. It is Fine Gael Party policy to abolish stamp duty on secondhand houses sold for less than €400,000.

The Government has taxed housing out of the reach of first-time buyers and young couples. When development charges, levies and taxes are combined, a major proportion of the price of a house accrues directly to the Government. We must address this issue. Abolishing such charges would reduce the cost of housing to young couples.

Every public representative is aware of the red tape involved in applying for disabled person's and other grants. I take issue with the attitude of local councils to applicants. Some applicants for disabled person's grant have passed away while waiting for their application for funding for a downstairs bathroom or shower to be processed. I have dealt with several such cases. The reasons given for the delay include the lack of money and red tape. At the end of 2005, for example, my local council indicated that funding was not available for essential repairs in the homes of elderly people, yet the country is awash with money.

Noel Ahern (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail)
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Why does the Deputy's local council not allocate money for that purpose? Two thirds of the money is provided by the Department but councils are unwilling to allocate the remaining third.

Pádraic McCormack (Galway West, Fine Gael)
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The council informs us it does not have or will not provide the money.

Noel Ahern (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail)
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It is a question of priorities.

Pádraic McCormack (Galway West, Fine Gael)
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About one year ago, the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government announced he would relax regulations applying to once-off housing in rural areas. Nothing of the sort occurred. My local planning officer informed me that the recent change does not make one iota of difference because he must adhere to the county development plan, with the result that people are unable to secure planning permission on sites on which they are able to provide housing for themselves. The Minister's announcement, which received considerable publicity at the time, amounted to no more than window dressing and unnecessarily raised hopes.

Fergus O'Dowd (Louth, Fine Gael)
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Deputy McCormack raised the administration of the disabled person's scheme. In that connection, I thank God for the Ombudsman, Ms Emily O'Reilly, who recently overturned the decision of a local authority in County Louth to refuse disabled person's grant to a mentally ill person because it failed to take into account the serious problems the person faced. More intervention is needed in terms of the decisions of local authorities.

My colleague, Deputy Stanton, made a key point that the ban on Members of the Oireachtas being members of local authorities has created a major gap in knowledge, access and information. There is also a gap in the decision making capacities of councils because the collective ability of Members to highlight to local authorities ways in which they may not act has been removed. We can no longer bring our special, historical knowledge to bear in local authorities. I am not arguing that the rules should be changed but the matter needs to be examined. For example, the statutory requirement that county managers meet local Deputies once per annum could be increased to once per quarter or Deputies could be invited to SPC or other meetings. We need to engage with our local authorities, particularly around policy issues such as housing and planning.

The Labour Party did a good evening's work in tabling this important motion. I propose to raise several important issues which constituents have raised with me. Many of those who approached me on these matters live on the margins. They may be alcoholics or may have recently left Drogheda Homeless Aid or other institutions. Many cannot access housing because they experience difficulty convincing local authority officials that they are homeless. On repeated occasions, people have been asked why they do not stay with relatives or friends. This approach is not good enough.

One of the Government decisions with which I have never agreed was to make local authorities responsible for homelessness and community welfare officers responsible for rent allowance. Unfortunately, in some areas this has resulted in a see-saw effect as local authorities tell people they are not homeless, while I discover through a telephone call to a community welfare officer that the person in question is entitled to be housed. On two occasions, I was compelled to telephone the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government requesting it to intervene to force the local authorities to recognise the needs of individuals and deal with them in a proper fashion.

Many of those affected by homelessness are in extremely difficult circumstances and may have experienced personal trauma or serious social problems. One cannot dump all of them in the lowest quality bed and breakfast establishments. They tend to end up in certain establishments — we know where they are — which have poor facilities and are generally not very nice. I tell those who approach me that they have a right to choose a bed and breakfast. The Government must address this issue.

At the weekend, I dealt with a person who became homeless due to a house fire. National protocols are required to establish how local authorities must act in such circumstances, what advice they should offer, who is the appointed officer and so forth. We must ensure contact is made with the appropriate officials and people made homeless are treated properly. It is difficult for those whose house has been burned down to take in what is required of them. Giving them a number to call is insufficient and a more proactive approach is needed. Proper protocols and, above all, empathy and sympathy are required. While the community welfare officers I meet are first class people who do an excellent job, local authorities must provide more training on how to deal with people whose personal lives are in extremis, as it were.

My colleagues have raised another issue which is frequently brought to Deputies' attention, namely, the position of single persons who are seeking housing. In nine out of ten cases, the person will be a divorced or separated man who has moved out of the family home. Many of these people have no stability in their lives and lead a lonely, unhappy existence, often based on drink, in one bedroom apartments. The rental accommodation scheme — RAS — does not cater for this group. I acknowledge, however, that the scheme has improved the quality of accommodation in Drogheda and it has become easier to find better quality flats or apartments at lower rents because the local authority makes up the difference.

Although the RAS can bring stability, it does not cater to the medium to long-term needs of the group of single persons I have described. The difficulty for them is that the eligibility criteria require a person to be in receipt of rent allowance for 18 months, which means people must first lead a dreadful lifestyle living in the dumps I described. If one could intervene, given certain conditions, and provide that the RAS will apply either after three months or even immediately, it would give these people an opportunity to lead a better lifestyle in better accommodation. They would have a better deal.