Maurice Cummins (Fine Gael)

The Department of Social and Family Affairs is practically acting like a housing authority. Much community welfare officer time is taken up with trying to sort out rent allowance, rent supplement and everything else. It was announced a number of years ago that we would have this area transferred to local authorities. It is partially transferred in the form of RAS and this should be extended. As Senator McFadden mentioned, some 91,000 people are on rent allowance and surely there should be a move to bring more people under RAS, which seems to be working quite well under the local authority system. I am sure savings would occur if that happened.

Has the intention been abandoned by the Department? Community welfare officers are not meant to deal with this area and it should, correctly, be dealt with by the local authority. If the intention has been abandoned, why so?