Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

With regard to Senator McFadden's questions, we are trying to put the regulations in this area into legislation. Under the regulations, an applicant must have been a tenant for a set period and at the time he or she took out the tenancy, he or she must have been able to pay the rent. It is not true to say they would not look for rent supplement because one might have taken out one's tenancy a year ago but only lost one's job now. We are trying to avoid people moving into expensive accommodation they cannot afford and then applying for rent supplement when they could never have afforded the accommodation in the first place. This is covered by regulation and the section provides that it is put into legislation.

With regard to the bona fides of tenants, the section provides that a tenant must have been in rented accommodation or an institution for six months. If one has been discharged from care, for example, or a psychiatric institution, one would be covered rather than having to make sure one was in rented accommodation up until then.

Local authorities are responsible for housing. They maintain housing policy but this is an unusual scheme, which was designed to be a short-term measure for those who needed support. However, it has changed considerably over the past while. The RAS is still maintained by local authorities. Housing managers have made recommendations but they are answerable to the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government. The CWOs who pay out social welfare funds are employed by the HSE. The sooner the CWOs come under the aegis of the Department of Social and Family Affairs and the industrial relations issues are resolved, the better for streamlining all the processes for everybody.

The section puts into legislation what we have in regulation. I was asked how money would be saved. Rents have fallen significantly over the past number of months. All the evidence shows that, but they have not fallen by the same amount everywhere or for different types of accommodation. For example, rent for a bedsit has not reduced as much as that for a house. Since we last set the limits, rents have continued to reduce. I aim to save money by setting revised rent limits for new tenants and for lease renewals. We do not expect recipients to renegotiate midway through a lease. We introduced that provision in the supplementary budget last April with some success because landlords with multiple properties were happy to have a rent supplement tenant. However, there is no way the State should dictate what are the high rents. That is how we intend to save money without placing an additional burden on tenants to renegotiate midway through leases.