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Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Tuesday, 30 Apr 1985

Vol. 357 No. 10

Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Rent Subsidies.

8.

asked the Minister for Social Welfare the total amount of money paid as rent subsidies by his Department to landlords under the Housing (Private Rented Dwellings) Act, 1982, in respect of each year since the Act came into effect.

Section 23 of the Housing (Private Rented Dwellings) Act, 1982, provides for the payment of allowances to tenants who would otherwise suffer hardship because of rent increases following the decontrol of rents formerly controlled under the Rent Restrictions Acts, 1960 and 1967. Subsidies are not paid to landlords under the Act.

The following amounts were paid by way of allowances in each year since the scheme commenced: 1982, £237; 1983, £304,783; 1984, £1,143,659.29.

Can the Minister say how many people are in receipt of rent subsidies and if his Department require evidence of the standard of accommodation for which this subsidy is paid? I am sure the Minister is aware that many of the houses for which landlords demand exorbitant rents are merely hovels and the Department are subsidising the rent for these hovels.

The Housing (Private Rented Dwellings) Act, 1982 was enacted to deal with the position which arose after certain parts of the Rent Restrictions Act were declared unconstitutional. It was estimated that 30,000 dwellings would be affected. The Act provides for such matters as the terms of tenancy of dwellings which were previously subject to control, the fixing of rents for such dwellings and the registration of such dwellings. These aspects of the legislation are administered by the Department of the Environment. The Act also empowers the Minister for Social Welfare, with the consent of the Minister for Finance, to make regulations enabling him to pay rent allowances for tenants of formerly controlled dwellings who would otherwise suffer hardship by reason of increases in the rents. The Act which came into operation on 2 August 1983 provided for the setting up of a rent tribunal to take over the functions of the court in the fixing of new terms of tenancy including rents. The social welfare rent allowances regulations 1982, which provided for the payment of rent allowances, cames into operation on 26 July 1982. These regulation have since been amended by revising means limits following the general increase in social welfare payments in 1983-84 and extending the provisions for the payment of rent allowances to persons whose rents are fixed by the tribunal. The rent allowance is payable, subject to a means test, to a person who is entitled to retain possession as a tenant of the dwelling the rent of which was controlled before 26 July 1982 provided that the terms of the tenancy are fixed by the court or the rent tribunal under the Act and have been set out in written form, signed by the landlord or his agent and a copy thereof has been furnished by the landlord to the tenant and the landlord has complied with the requirements of any regulations under section 24 of the 1982 Act for the time being in force.

The Minister's reply was very interesting but it was not an answer to the question I asked. Do the Department take any interest whatever in the condition of the houses for which they pay a rent subsidy? The Minister may not be aware that regulations under section 26 of the Act stipulate that the houses must be in a certain condition in order to qualify for increased rents. Do the Department take any interest in whether the landlord has complied with these regulations before they agree to pay the rent subsidy?

I am sure that is a function for the court or the rent tribunal under the Act in fixing the rent. The Department of Social Welfare are concerned about the financial circumstances of the tenant. Our function is to ensure that if a tenant is entitled to assistance from the Department to help to pay the rent the tenant gets it. The Department are not in the business of assessing the type of structures or the structural or other condition of the dwellings. Their function is to assess the means of the applicant for assistance and to award an allowance accordingly.

I am sure the Minister will accept that the subsidy being paid is an indirect payment to the owners of the houses, the landlords of the houses concerned. Would he consider ensuring that a representative of his Department would attend at the hearing of the rents tribunal to ensure that, where money is being paid indirectly to these landlords, the accommodation they are providing for the exorbitant rents they are getting is habitable and suitable for humans to live in?

The Deputy is raising a very broad question. If the Department of Social Welfare were to follow that line of action, we would have to investigate how every payment made by the Department was being spent and to whom it was being paid. This is a subsidy to the tenant. It could be said that a fuel subsidy paid by the Department of Social Welfare is a subsidy to the fuel merchants, or that the old age pension is a subsidy to shopkeepers. The Deputy is making the point that the Department of Social Welfare should provide special inspectors to see that we get good value for the money we issue by way of assistance to various people. I do not think that kind of argument is sustainable in any social welfare system throughout the world.

A final supplementary.

The Minister said that something over £1 million was paid out in 1984 on this subsidy by the Department of Social Welfare. I am suggesting that the Department should ensure that the money is well spent. I do not mind if the Department ask the Minister for Finance to send out tax inspectors. It might be interesting to learn what they would find out. The Department should find out whether the houses on which economic rents, as they are termed, are being assessed are habitable, or whether the Department are subsidising landlords to enable people to live in houses which are nothing more than hovels. It is the responsibility of the Department to ensure that they are not actively maintaining a situation in which people are expected to live in conditions of utter degradation.

It is hard to see this as a function of the Department of Social Welfare. The rents tribunal fix these rents. I am not readily familiar with all the provisions of that system, but I imagine they take into account the kind of accommodation and that the rent fixed bears some relationship to the standard of the accommodation. The Department's function is to pay this assistance — that was the original intention of the legislation — to help people who otherwise could be left homeless to pay whatever rent is fixed by the tribunal.

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