Victor Boyhan (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I do not know who read the Commencement matter. It asks the Minister to confirm the progress on a form of standardised independent means mechanism. The Minister of State dealt with none of that. It is a "teach your grandmother to suck eggs" lecture from someone telling us about the independence of local authorities to do what they like. We know that the Ombudsman has a massive number of complaints from these local authorities relating to Traveller accommodation, social housing, HAP and a range of other issues. We are the legislators. We make primary legislation. I sit on the housing committee, as the Minister of State said.

I know the Minister of State is committed, but it is simply not good enough to keep saying that local authorities are responsible. The Government is taking powers from local authorities all over the place. We will see it with the Planning and Development Bill this week. Powers are being removed in the context of a range of issues. We have a problem, as the Minister of State said here last week, with decentralising some of our powers and with transferring powers to local authorities.

I like the Minister of State. He is a decent person, a decent Minister of State and is committed. I respectfully ask him to bring one message back to the Department, namely that we support the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission's recommendations for a formal, standardised, independent appeals mechanism in respect of housing. That is what our committee did in the context of pre-legislative scrutiny and that is what is done in the report. It is a fair ask, an important ask and one we should try to progress through the legislation which we are now going to be dealing with, which is the general scheme of the housing (miscellaneous provisions) Bill 2024.