David Norris (Independent)

Senator Bacik has hit the nail on the head. The whole purpose is to provide discretion. I refer to the two amendments, amendment No. 37, the changing of "shall" to "may" and the substantive amendment No. 38. The whole point of it was to enable a housing authority and the tenant together to make arrangements for the payment of arrears owed and at the same time to allow them to be in receipt of social housing support. That is not included here and I will most definitely put that amendment to a vote. This is absolutely disgraceful. It is dealing with people who are in a real situation of hardship and this very severe penalty could be imposed on somebody if they kept a parrot, a dog or a cat and there was a condition of that kind. They would be debarred from getting the social housing support at the same time as they were being forced to pay the arrears. I wonder if the penny has dropped in the Department as to the kind of economic times into which we are rapidly moving. Many people will be caught in this situation and it is absolutely unacceptable that the Minister of State should take this view and tie down the hands.

The Minister of State asked us to withdraw our amendments. I can tell him I will not be withdrawing this amendment. I am asking the Minister of State to withdraw his amendment and substitute ours, in the interests of decent treatment of these tenants. There are plenty of ways of dealing with tenants who get into arrears and all those powers remain with the local authority. All we are asking for is a bit of flexibility in economic circumstances which cry out for flexibility.