Lynn Ruane (Independent)
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The Minister of State is very welcome. I raise an issue that has come past my desk a couple of times over the last few weeks. There seems to be an increased pressure on families, especially vulnerable families, some of them headed up by women, in relation to rent arrears. In one of two cases of rent arrears, one for €12,000 and another for €10,000, the person has been put out onto the street with their family. They have been in the house over 42 years. A figure of €12,000 is a drop in the ocean compared to the fact that the Dublin Region Homeless Executive stated that it can cost up to €180,000 per year to put a family in emergency accommodation.

However, what has come to my attention in supporting some of those families who are facing court proceedings in relation to rent arrears is that rather than, obviously, wrapping the supports around them, children are receiving court summonses from Dublin City Council and South Dublin County Council in relation to the rent of their parents being behind. Can you imagine being ten years old, some letters come through the door, your name is on that post, and you pick that up and open it. What it says on that letter, that is effectively penalising, criminalising and shaming the child, is:

Dear ... [so-and-so; I will remove the name],

As an occupant of the property ... [again, I will remove the address], we wish to inform you that there is matter before the courts in relation to the above premises. The matter will be before the court on ... [it gives the date] in District Court No. 23, Four Courts, Inns Quay, Dublin 7. We recommend that you, as the occupant of the property, attend court on this date.

We are literally sending requests for children to come to court. A mother, if she has anybody to seek support from, may say that she is not bringing her child to that. However, if the child opens it, then the child is asking, "Am I in trouble? Am I poor? Can mammy not afford the rent? Are we going to be homeless?" Then the child brings the letter to the mammy, who has probably been trying to shield the child from the struggles they are experiencing within the home in terms of being able to pay the bills, and she is then forced and shamed into having to explain to the child the struggle they are in in terms of rent arrears. What if the mother brings the child to court? Why are we making a spectacle of families in the courts where the children have to sit by and watch?

It makes absolutely no sense as to why we would be effectively creating a potential criminal sanction for child occupiers. They have no responsibility. How can a ten-year-old pay the rent? They are on the rent, of course, because they live there in terms of how many people live in the house, but the only person responsible for making sure that the tenancy is paid and the rent is up to date, or to come up with a new rent agreement, is the leaseholder or parent.

That situation was in relation to a ten-year-old. Another situation was in relation to a 17-year-old. This person turned 18 and the parents were put out on the street. The 18-year-old went to put themselves on the housing list at 18 - they had just left school - and the local authority told them they could not go on the housing list, that they were now barred for two years because they broke their tenancy agreement. This was a child occupier. A child occupier was banned from going on the housing list because their parents could not deal with the cost-of-living crisis they were in being able to keep up with their rent. One of those families had been in the home for 42 years. It makes absolutely zero sense.

I am hoping the Minister of State is going to tell me it is an automation system and that it is not a human making this decision to send a child to court or ask a child to attend court or force a mother to have to explain to that child the difficult situation they are in. What I am hoping is that an automation system has spat these out and sent them to everyone in a house and that we can send some sort of ministerial direction to the local authorities to make sure the message is loud and clear that a child occupier who is under 18 should never receive one of these in the post. No family should be shamed and potentially criminalised for struggling. We want to deal with intergenerational poverty, inequality and all of those things, and this is definitely not the way to do it.

Christopher O'Sullivan (Cork South-West, Fianna Fail)
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I thank Senator Ruane for raising this issue. In my view, there are no circumstances in which a ten-year-old child or anyone underage should be getting a court order or formal order to appear in court, especially when it comes to the issue of rent arrears. I have a formal response which outlines the situations where, potentially, someone who is under the age of 18 may receive a formal letter. Certainly, I do not think there is any justification for the situations the Senator described. Clearly, there needs to be flexibility or, at the very least, a review of the process of where this happens so that we can protect the type of person about whom the Senator is talking.

Obviously, it is my understanding that it would be the clerk of the court who would issue formal invitations to appear-----

Lynn Ruane (Independent)
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The letter was issued on council-headed paper.

Christopher O'Sullivan (Cork South-West, Fianna Fail)
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All right. We will go through this, and we can absolutely discuss further how we are going to prevent this from happening in the future.

The general administration of the court system is underpinned by legislation within the responsibilities of my colleague, the Minister for justice. I thank the Senator for clarifying that she is seeking a review of the housing legislation to ensure children do not have to attend court proceedings in respect of local authority tenancies where they are occupiers. Obviously, there is a place for housing legislation within this to try to address it.

Local authorities are responsible under the Housing Acts for the management and maintenance of their housing stock and the management of their estates, including taking appropriate measures to counter antisocial behaviour. The Housing Acts 1995 to 2024 contain a number of provisions whereby a local authority tenant and their household may interact with the District Court. A number of provisions relate to instances whereby the local authority is seeking a possession order to return the property to the local authority in cases of rent arrears, antisocial behaviour or other serious breaches of the tenancy agreement. There was no possession order in the situation the Senator highlighted.

There are also provisions whereby the local authority or, indeed, the tenant themselves are seeking to exclude a person who they believe to be engaging in antisocial behaviour, and in these situations the person in question may be under the age of 18.That does not cover the ten-year-old who received the letter in the case Senator Ruane spoke about.

Section 3 of the Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1997 provides for the issuing of an excluding order through the District Court to exclude a household member, including juveniles, engaged in antisocial behaviour from the relevant dwelling, the vicinity of the dwelling and, if appropriate, the housing estate in question for a period of up to three years. An excluding order may also, if the court thinks fit, prohibit the respondent from causing or attempting to cause any intimidation, coercion, harassment, obstruction of, threat to, or interference with the tenant or other occupant of any house concerned. Breaching these orders, once in place, is an offence, with the person subject to the order liable to penalties, including fines or imprisonment, or in the case of a person under the age of 18, detention in a children detention school.

The Housing Acts allow the local authority or the tenant to apply to the District Court, but they do not prescribe that a child occupying a local authority tenancy is required to attend the subsequent proceedings. It may be that any formal invitation to attend such proceedings comes directly from the courts in order to allow that individual to respond to any allegations made which may potentially result in the issuing of such an excluding order or, indeed, a possession order.

That response says to me that the situation Senator Ruane described was wrong. It should not have happened. It was rent arrears, which is not covered unless there is a repossession. It did not involve antisocial behaviour, so it is not covered. Senator Ruane also said the letter was issued on Dublin City Council headed paper. According to this answer, the courts are responsible, so there is an anomaly. Something has happened that needs to be looked into further. I could not agree more with the Senator. She presented a situation where a vulnerable young child got a letter in the post. I can imagine the fear and anxiety that would cause. Fair play to her for raising it because it is clearly something we need to look at.

Lynn Ruane (Independent)
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My hope is that it is an anomaly. My thoughts were that it is an automated system that does not pick up the differences, but it is from the law agent in the council. I do not have the other one in front of me that is from South Dublin County Council, where there was a similar situation. The person who was a child occupier was then banned from going on the housing list when they were in school and obviously could not pay rent. It is clear that an anomaly is happening.

I am hopeful this can be addressed simply, without having to look at legislation because it is not part of the legislation. I hope the Minister of State and I can follow up in the next week or two to figure out a simple solution to this. Thankfully, in this situation, the mother got to the letter first, but she was distraught at the thought more letters might come. She was watching for the postman and terrified she would have to tell her child that they were in trouble with rent arrears, with the lack of safety that would have caused for the child and shame for the mother. She is still watching the post because these proceedings will not take place until next year. Therefore, I would love to receive some feedback in the next week or two about how we can address this. There is probably a simple solution.

Christopher O'Sullivan (Cork South-West, Fianna Fail)
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Without knowing the exact details of the case, I can say from the way it was presented that if a parent, in this instance a woman, is struggling with rent arrears, it must be dealt with in the most sensitive manner. First, the different scenarios and potential ways in which the rent arrears can be addressed should be worked through. That should be the first port of call. The blunt issuing of a letter addressed to a child, in this instance a ten-year-old, does not make any sense. Like Senator Ruane, I hope this is an anomaly. We will try to find out and get a bit more detail. However, even the response I just gave clearly sets out that rent arrears is not an excuse and does not trigger a letter to a child as happened in this case. That sets it out clearly, but we will certainly get more feedback about whether it is appropriate for the letter to be on local authority headed paper as the Senator said it was. We will try to find out more.