Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour)

I met a voluntary housing organisation yesterday. It is hoping to go into a ghost estate, where a certain number of people have bought houses. The organisation hopes to take over the vacant houses and provide social housing for people who need it. There is scope to work with the voluntary, community and co-operative sectors in these situations. However, Senator Kelly is talking about an estate that may never be finished. We need a solution for individuals in those cases. We must be careful not to put people on social housing lists who may not satisfy the criteria. We would have to look at each case on an individual basis.

Senator O'Neill spoke about rent allowance and the need for an audit of local authority housing lists. Work is being undertaken in the Department because we are taking over the area of rent supplement. I agree this is a huge amount of money. For a long time people have been asking that something be done about it because this spending is not controlled. There is not the degree of oversight one would have if the scheme were under a local authority. That is why we are bringing the scheme into the local authority system. I think we will be able to address the issues raised by Senator O'Neill.