John McGahon (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I would like to raise two issues. The first issue relates to social protection. It is something I did not realise until it was brought to my attention by somebody from my home town of Dundalk. Our social protection system is extremely generous. It exists to provide a financial safeguard to people who experience different issues in their lives. One thing that I did not realise is that people on widow’s benefit are not entitled to illness benefit at the same time. They have to stick with widow’s benefit. That is not quite fair. A death has obviously occurred of a loved one and these people may not be able to work after that, though they may wish to continue working. It is not fair that they have to be ruled out of receiving both benefits. If they are on widow's benefit, they have had awful bad luck. It should not rule them out of availing of illness benefit or other social protection payments at the same time. I would like to have a debate about social protection and it is something I will write to Minister, Deputy Humphreys about. Hopefully, we can have something like that changed and included.

The other issue, which I raised a year and a half ago, concerns the housing lists of local authorities. It is an issue of natural justice and fairness that really annoys me and has done for the ten years that I have been in local and national politics. When the local authority wants to check the housing list to make sure people are living at their current address or to update their address, they send a letter to them. If they do not reply to that letter straight away, the authority removes them from the housing list. If they are on the list for six or seven years and the council sends them a letter that they do not reply to, those years are wiped with one stroke of a pen. That is so unjust and inherently unfair. The local authority has no guarantee the letters have even reached these individuals.

The other issue is that the process varies from local authority to local authority. For example, in County Louth, people are wiped off the list, while other local authorities might take people off the list for two years. They will have what was there with the last two years taken off. There is a variance throughout local authorities. Louth is the most extreme. I would like the Department of housing to come up with a protocol or a system, which means that when local authorities are doing this, there is fair play. Let us imagine being on a housing list for seven or eight years and because we did not reply to a letter to state that we are living at the same address, those years are wiped and we are told to reapply. That is an absolute injustice and unfairness. The unfairness of it is that it varies from local authority to local authority. We need a dedicated policy from the Department to all local authorities about it.