Victor Boyhan (Independent) | Oireachtas source

First, I welcome Senator Chambers to the position of Deputy Leader. I do not envy her. I see she is taking copious notes but I do not think she will have sufficient time to reply fully to all the issues raised. I welcome her to her position. It is an onerous and responsible position in the House and I wish her well with it.

I wish to echo the comments of Senator Higgins. What a fine Senator we have. It is great that we have diversity in Seanad Éireann and, in particular, Independent Senators of her calibre. She is passionate about all of her work and processes and procedures. It is worth acknowledging that. She certainly exercises all Senators and that is something we should be big enough to acknowledge among ourselves. I am happy to support her proposal. It is right and proper.

I also wish to acknowledge the enormous work of the Seanad staff because these backlogs and problems are not issues for them. These problems are political in nature; they are not administrative problems. I wish to be clear on that. I thank Mr. Martin Groves, Ms Bridget Doody and all the Seanad team. In particular, I acknowledge the enormous work done by the Bills Office.I echo what Senator Kyne said about local government and its funding difficulties. I ask the Deputy Leader to consider inviting the Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, to come to the House and discuss it. We saw in a report in the Irish Independentyesterday that more than half of Dublin local authority tenants are in arrears totalling €33 million. That is not altogether their problem, and we have to address that too. The Money Advice and Budgeting Service, MABS, talks about assisting people in social housing to address their rent problems. We need to help people. It is not all about revenue for local government, but that is a consideration too. We have to support them. I am advised that we need legislation to allow people have rent taken from social welfare with their agreement. I ask the Deputy Leader to invite the Minister to come to the House and have a discussion about local government funding.