Marie Moloney (Labour)

I congratulate the Sinn Féin Senators on tabling this motion today. Whether or not we agree with them, they have raised an issue that needs to be aired and debated on the floor of the House. I am very disappointed with the attendance in the House because I had expected that Senators would be clamouring to speak on this issue. The Minister stole half of my speech. She must have been looking at my notes because she spoke about many of the matters I intended to raise. I will not repeat her comments.

She described rent supplement as a short-term payment but everyone knows that is not the reality of the situation. The housing policy framework states that 94,990 households were receiving rent supplement payments at the end of March 2012, of which 53,821 were receiving payments for 18 months or longer. There is no indication of the length of time for which they were receiving payments but I am sure it is a long period. We cannot blame the people concerned because they are trapped in this scenario due to loss of employment or the reduction in the rate of construction of social housing. There is nothing they can do to get out of their predicament. I have met several directors of housing in local authorities to ascertain their opinions on the issue. Many of them expressed the view that the rent supplement deters people from accepting local authority housing. In one case a family of two parents and two children who were in receipt of a jobseeker's allowance of €372 per week and rent supplement for a four bedroom property found that the €35 they contributed to their rent was less than they would pay in differential rent for local authority housing. Why should this family take up a local authority house which probably has three bedrooms if they can live comfortably in a four bedroom house?

The leasing scheme does not appear to have taken off to the extent predicted. The last time I checked nobody was on the leasing scheme in Kerry County Council. I had a client who had a daughter with a disability. She negotiated with her landlord to enter the leasing scheme and all was going well until a council official advised her that she would have to move out of the house before she could enter the leasing system. She might not even have gotten the house again if somebody with a disability was ahead of her on the list. These anomalies need to be addressed.

It appears from my experience in housing matters that the rent supplement process is devoid of basic background checks such as whether the property meets PRTB standards and whether the landlord can document building energy regulation certification, proper planning permission and tax compliance. I am glad that responsibility for this area is transferring to the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government because housing should be the responsibility of a single authority. If the rent supplement transfers to the local authority these issues will have to be addressed because local authorities cannot be permitted to make payments to individuals who are not registered for tax or own properties which do not meet the standards. Perhaps these are issues for another debate but they must be addressed.