I move: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time." The idea behind the social housing passport is a very simple one. It allows people on local authority housing waiting lists or in receipt of social housing supports like the housing assistance payment, HAP, and the rental accommodation scheme, RAS, to be able to move from one local authority to another and to take their years on the list or on transfer list with them. It was a long-standing commitment of Fine Gael, the Labour Party and, indeed, until recently, the Minister of State's party. Alan Kelly, when he was the Minister for housing back in 2014, included it in his housing plan at the time. Simon Coveney, when he was the Minister for housing in 2016, included a commitment to introduce a social housing passport. In 2016, the Minister of State's party colleague the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, also made a commitment to introduce a social housing passport in his plan. I was genuinely surprised when that commitment was not repeated in the programme for Government and was not contained in the current housing plan. It is a very simple solution to a very real problem affecting large numbers of people and there simply is no sensible or credible reason not to do it. The Bill I am introducing with my colleagues here this evening is very simple. It gives the Minister for housing the power to put in place a social housing passport by way of regulations. The fine detail of that would be a matter for the Minister and Government, but the legislation sets out a number of core principles of how the passport would work. First, importantly it would be for both people on the list and people in receipt of social housing support, such as HAP and RAS. It is not just the 61,000 households on our council lists but also the 55,000 or so households in HAP or private sector RAS. Second, and also important, is that it would not simply allow people to move freely around the country and change housing list. The legislation sets out the minimum criteria against which a tenant would be able to access the passport, for example, if they were able to take up an employment or educational opportunity in another county, if there was a healthcare arrangement involved, if they were fleeing domestic, sexual or gender-based violence, or other exceptional and compassionate grounds. A relatively narrow set of circumstances would allow somebody to apply for it. I will give a few concrete examples of why this makes eminent sense. Somebody living in Dublin is seven, eight or nine years on a local authority housing list and is in employment, and their employer offers them a job in Cork in the Minister of State's own constituency. This gives them an opportunity to advance economically and they would still be eligible to remain on the local authority housing list in Cork as they would in Dublin. Therefore, because they have a live offer of a job, instead of what we ask them to do now, which is to choose between giving up their many years on the list and giving up the opportunity for employment advancement, they would be able to apply to Cork city or county council, provide the evidence, move onto that list and take their years with them. Therefore, they would not lose the opportunity for their permanent affordable home, nor would they lose the opportunity to advance economically. There is a particular problem with how this challenge operates in Dublin, because unique to Dublin, we have four local authorities. While you are still only allowed to be on one list, you are allowed to have areas of choice in the other neighbouring local authorities. I am not sure if Cork city and county councils do that; they might be the only other in the State. In Dublin, somebody starts on the Dublin city list but cannot find rental accommodation in the city, so they end up renting in my constituency or Deputy O'Reilly's constituency in south Dublin or Fingal. They could be renting for a long time, and eight, nine, ten or 11 years pass before they approach their eligibility date for a social home. However, their children are all in school and the local clubs. The person may have local employment. They are rooted in the community in south Dublin or Fingal. However, because of the way in which the council lists operate, they will never get a permanent home in that local authority area. Their only option will be to eventually take up an allocation in another part of the city beyond the catchment area of their employment, educational supports, friends and family. They then face a dilemma, because many people do not understand this when they go on the list. They only begin to understand it many years later. They have to decide whether to give up those years and start again on the list in the local authority in which they are living or completely uproot their family to move to another part of the city. That does not make any sense whatsoever. I understanding that one of the reasons for it no longer being part of the programme for Government housing plan is because there was concern among the County and City Management Association, CCMA, and the local government sector about having too liberal a regime. I fully support that. I do not believe that people should just be able to move around for no reason. There should be very clear, legitimate and sensible reasons, and if the reasons we have set out here are not to the Minister's liking, this allows him to set the regulations in whatever manner he decides. It is disappointing that the Minister of State has tabled his 12-month amendment. This Bill says to the Minister to go away, do the regulations and consult with his officials, and there is no need to delay that for 12 months. I presume the only reason the amendment is here is so that the Government does not seem to be voting against the Bill. I do not believe anybody could say that it was anything but eminently sensible legislation. Notwithstanding the fact that the Government is not moving forward with the passport, it gave a commitment last year - something that my colleagues, Deputies Devine and O'Reilly, had been raising regularly - to at least introduce a social housing transfer protocol for women experiencing domestic, sexual or gender-based violence. That was published last weekend, and I welcome it. However, even with that, there is a problem. The way in which the circular is set out, it only applies to households on council lists. That means households in emergency accommodation, living with family or friends, or in the private rental sector receiving rent supplement, because that is not a social housing support. That is only about half the people who might actually need this. By excluding social housing tenants in receipt of HAP or RAS - the approximately 55,000 households that would need this vital and, in some cases, life-saving transfer protocol - they will not be able to access it at all. It is disappointing that, when several journalists have contacted the Government and the Department looking to confirm on the record that HAP and RAS tenants are not included - we know that they are not - and set out why and if that will be reconsidered, instead of giving a straight answer that, yes, they have been excluded, and explaining why or giving a commitment to review and change it as a matter of urgency, there has been an attempt to confuse things, saying that HAP people can move into HAP tenancies in other local authorities. Of course, you can have HAP all over the State, but what you cannot do as a HAP tenant under this transfer protocol is move your HAP transfer list from one local authority to another and take your years on the list with you. You are punished if you try to do so. The Government has made its position clear. The Minister of State has a well-crafted script from his officials, which is absolutely fine, but I cannot imagine that, knowing the realities of life as he does, being a constituency politician like the rest of us, he does not see the value in this. I make a personal appeal to him that, whatever he says on the floor here today, he use his influence in government if he believes this is a good idea. He might use his influence inside the Department and reopen the conversation with the Minister about a full-fledged social housing passport, as proposed. It is one of those occasions where you might not think it is a huge issue, but it affects thousands of people. I thank my colleagues, including my constituency colleague Deputy Ward, who is not here today because he had another engagement. He wanted me to put on the record the actual experience of a constituent of his for whom this issue was very pertinent. I will read it into the record, if that is okay with the Minister of State. The woman in question said, "When I registered with [Dublin City Council] I was already staying in Saggart", which as the Minister of State will know, is in South Dublin County Council, "but the sad part is I didn't know I had to register with [South Dublin County Council] and the lady I spoke to at [Dublin City Council] did not redirect me he just registered me." Sonas, which is her domestic violence support organisation, asked her to reach out to Deputy Ward and share her entire story, which is the information I will now outline: The reason this matter is so important to me is because I am a survivor of domestic abuse. The father of my child subjected me to severe abuse and made threats against my life, including telling me that if he ever found me, he would kill me and dump me in a dumpster. These threats and experiences caused me years of fear and trauma. For the last number of years, I have finally been able to rebuild some sense of peace and safety in South Dublin [where she lives]. I do not have family in Ireland, and the only support system I have is the community I have built around me here over many years. It has taken a very long time for me to feel safe enough to live without constantly looking over my shoulder. The thought of being moved to the Northside [to the Dublin city list, which she is on] leaves me extremely vulnerable. I know nobody there, and I fear that I could come into contact with people connected to my abuser, forcing me to relive trauma that I have spent years trying to overcome. I cannot imagine having to start over again [on the south Dublin list] while carrying that fear, not only for myself but also for my child. Another constituent wrote: You wouldn't believe how this effects my mental health, I am 16 years on [the Dublin City Council] list only that I am from the DCC area reason why I started my application with them, I moved to Clondalkin when I was pregnant with my daughter who now is 16 years old and we've set roots here, my both children go to the local Irish schools, my daughter is a Ranger in the local girl guides, my son plays GAA for Clondalkin along with other afterschool activities, I am a preschool and afterschool teacher in the Clondalkin area 13 years now. We have solid roots here and became apart of the community. Recently I've being in touch with other local TDs to voice my story and I know I am not the only one. These are two cases - the case in Saggart and the case in Clondalkin. Neither of these people can access the social housing passport protocol, as the Minister of State has set out. Both have compelling reasons that they should be able to do so. I look forward to the Minister of State's speech. I look forward to hearing why he thinks it is sensible to defer giving the Minister the power to set out the regulations as he sees fit. I ask him again to see the sense in this and talk to his colleagues. I am sure his backbenchers have many constituents like ours who see this as a sensible move. It would be one of those rare occasions, if the Minister brought in his own legislation, where this House would be unanimous in saying that the Government is doing some good on housing, and we all support it. I am not precious about the Bill in front of us. I would quite happily withdraw it tomorrow and give all the credit and kudos to the Minister, Deputy Browne, if he wanted to do it himself, because the crucial thing here is that there is a cohort of people who are being treated unfairly by being denied a reasonable chance of progressing in their life because of a very bureaucratic rule. Let us get rid of it. Let us put a social housing passport on the Statute Book and let people get on with their lives in the way that we would all like them to do.

Sentiment score: 0.09

The Minister of State is confirming to the House that they do not currently apply to HAP or RAS tenants currently. That is the position.

Sentiment score: 0.00

That is just factually correct.

Sentiment score: 0.00

Sure. I thank the Minister of State for his reply. My natural disposition as a person is to treat people at face value, but ten years in this House has made a bit of a cynic of me. When I see the timed amendment, given the fact that a commitment was made by three previous Ministers to introduce the social housing passport over a period of 14 years there was clearly plenty of time to have considered those matters. The Minister of State and I also know it is normal for legislation to be passed in this House but for another 12 months to be required for regulations before the intent of that legislation becomes operational. However, I will put my cynicism to one side and genuinely engage with him at face value. Let us test this over the next 12 months. I will respond constructively to a number of the issues he has raised. First, it is obviously the case that different local authorities operate different allocation schemes. We have three different bands of income eligibility for social housing and different local authorities have a mixture of time on list or priority. It is quite a complex system. We also have a situation where there already are opportunities for people to move within local authorities or across local authorities, such as HAP crossovers where those issues are addressed simply. When you move from HAP in the local authority whose list you are on to HAP in a neighbouring local authority, you accept the fact that the HAP rates in that neighbouring local authority could be lower. That is the fact of moving from one administrative arrangement to another. Likewise, Dublin City Council has six or more areas of choice. I find its system probably one of the most complicated in the country. People move from area of choice to another over the lifetime of their wait for social housing. That means as a consequence that people can move down the list as well as up. That issue of potential inequity the Minister of State mentioned is already part of our system and it would have been part of his own system prior to the creation of a single area of choice. The real inequity of course is somebody having to lose their time on list to move to another local authority. That is the fundamental question here. While I appreciate his Clonakilty and Youghal example has some relevance, we are not proposing that people can do what is currently possible in Cork. He knows that and has been clear about that. We are setting out five specific sets of circumstances where that would be permissible. Under our scheme, the person moving from Youghal to Clonakilty would have to have a specific reason like taking up a job or education in Clonakilty or accessing long-term medical treatment, etc. It is much more specific and much less likely to create some of the tensions he mentioned. Of course, we used to have intercounty transfers, and we used to have intercounty mutual transfers. They used to be part of our system, albeit in an ad hoc manner. With respect to the challenges on the administrative burden and cost I again think the HAP crossover shows there are straightforward ways to do this. I acknowledge it would create a small amount of additional administrative burden, but you are not talking about creating some new mammoth system. I think the issue of technological challenges is a bit of red herring. Nobody is proposing the need for a national IT system. We can already deal with intercounty protocols of various kinds using the existing systems there, imperfect as they are. The fact that the domestic, sexual and gender-based violence transfer protocol has been introduced, albeit on a limited initial basis demonstrates that those problems can be overcome. I am not at all suggesting that a Bill like this would pass through the House and then, within days, those systems would be in place. I accept it would take some time and engagement on those but I do not think there is as much of a challenge as the Minister of State suggested. He is correct that we have made provision in the Bill for an all-Ireland dimension. It is general. It is a "may". It is following engagement on a cross-jurisdictional basis. Having lived there and having been a tenant of the Housing Executive for nine years, I an aware the systems are different. If we think the intercounty local authority complexities are complex here, they are even more complex there. I do not for a moment think that would be a quick or straightforward challenge. For people who live across the Border regions, there is real value in looking at it, which is why we put it in the Bill. On the protocol, which was published last week, the Minister of State is not the first person to say to me that when it is revised, there might be a way of looking at addressing the issue of HAP or RAS tenants. That is quite a big admission, literally a few days after the thing was introduced. Let me make the case in the few minutes I have for why that issue needs to be addressed much more urgently, separate to this legislation. I do it by illustrating the absurdity of the arrangement that is proposed. As we know, people living in the private rental sector in receipt of rent supplement remain on the local authority housing list. They are not defined as in receipt of social housing support as per the legislation or adequately housed. They are renting and they are in receipt of rent supplement. If a woman in that situation is at risk of, or is experiencing and seeking to flee, serious domestic, sexual or gender-based violence, she will be able to access the protocol. That is a really good thing and I welcome it. However, if a woman living on the same street in a similar private rental property who has been on the council list for the same length of time happens to be in receipt of HAP because of the consequences of the Housing Act 2010, is not on the principal council waiting list and is in receipt of social housing support, she is deemed under law to be adequately housed and will be denied access to the protocol. That makes no sense. Let us park the issue of whether people on HAP or RAS are adequately housed; that is an argument for another day. It would not have been administratively or legally unduly complex to have included HAP and RAS tenants in the protocol. It would have required a bit of extra work and flexibility, but how can we stand here and say a woman in need of the protocol on rent supplement can access it but a woman in need of the protocol on HAP cannot? It makes no sense. When I say this to some people - and I take it from the Minister of State's reaction when Deputy O'Reilly and I raised it - there is some surprise. People's initial reaction is it does not make any sense. Obviously, it throws up a broader question. Those folks are on transfer lists and other people are on transfer lists. How do we start to disentangle that? I do not for a moment suggest those things are not tricky, but let us deal with the numbers. According to the latest summary of social housing needs assessments, 61,000 households are on council waiting lists, although we know a large number of them are single people. About 49,000 households at the end of last year were on HAP, while there were about 7,500 private sector RAS recipients of the 14,000. That brings us to over 56,000. They are predominantly families and people with children. In fact, there is a larger number of women with children there. So when I say potentially half the cohort of people who will need access to the protocol will be denied, that is just a statistical fact. I have said publicly, including to the Minister of State, Deputy Cummins, last week, and will say it to the Minister, Deputy Browne, when I have the opportunity, that I do not think we can wait for a review of the protocol to fix that. Ministerial direction needs to be given to the officials, who in turn have to go back to the local authorities. There will be some local resistance to this. I have talked to the local authorities and I get it, but that needs to be urgently changed. That circular needs to be revised and reissued as a matter of urgency. If we do not do that, we will put a cohort of women at serious risk and in precarious positions. I fully accept the Government's bona fides in introducing that protocol. Deputy O'Reilly welcomed it last week when it was published and I am welcoming it today. I know the Government is trying to do the right thing but it cannot do the right thing when half the cohort of people who need that crucial intervention are denied it for narrow, rigid, bureaucratic reasons. I may regret saying this, but I will take the Minister of State at his word that he and his partners in government are genuinely interested in getting this proposal right and are willing to work with all of us in opposition to address it. I look forward to all the Opposition being invited up to the Custom House, having tea and biscuits with Nina and the team and teasing these issues out along with the local government sector. I think we have technical solutions to some of the issues the Minister of State raised. I know some of the arguments some in the local government sector are making are not as problematic as they may seem. If in six months - and definitely in 12 months - there is no movement, I will come back here and say, "Minister, I was wrong to take you at face value. I should have allowed my cynicism to shine through because you haven't taken the issue seriously." Let us fix it. It can be six months, 12 months or whatever length of time the Minister of State thinks it will take, but let us do it. Nobody in this debate has said it should not be done or that there are not good reasons to do it. I am willing to work with anybody in government, and with any officials in the Department or the local government sector, to get it right. Let us go and do it.

Sentiment score: 0.04