Michael Finneran (Roscommon-South Leitrim, Fianna Fail)

As I said, subsection (6) of that section gives power to the Minister with regard to matters to be included in the rent scheme, including the waiving of rent in whole or in part or on a temporary basis in the case of hardship. That provision is there. The official amendment No. 72 inserts a new subsection to clarify that while rescheduling of repayments in cases of hardship will apply to rent, loans and so on due to housing authorities, it will not apply to profit and clawback payments due to them. There is no basis for allowing hardship arguments to be presented in the case of clawbacks designed to ensure that housing authorities share in the profit made by householders on sales of dwellings for market value that they originally bought at a discount from the local authorities. That is a separate matter. However, authorities are entitled to waive either in part or in whole rent due to them from households.