Marian Harkin: Urges Rapid Rent Help for Domestic Violence Victims

Thank you, Clann Comhairle, and thank you, Minister, thank you for your presence here today. And can I also just put on the record, my thanks to yourself, your officials, and all the relevant staff throughout the country. You have worked unstintingly and you have shown huge commitment to ensure that people get their payments. Nothing, Minister, as you know, is perfect, but in my opinion, and from what I've seen, it's been first class. Now, I haven't been in the chamber because I'm asking a few questions of different ministers, conscious of time, but I have been listening to everything. So I am aware of your responses. And in one of your responses where you spoke about victims of domestic violence not being able to access the emergency rent supplement, you went on to say that in the last few days you formulated a new response. I wonder if it's possible you could give us any detail of that here today? What was asked of us, the response that was formulated was driven by the Department of Justice and the Department of Children, because they were the agencies that are responsible for providing the needs. Safe Ireland, the Women's Council of Ireland, have come to us in the last couple of weeks and said it wasn't exactly working the way they had envisaged, and asked could we be the direct referral body, and could maybe on guard the Siakana be also an authorised referrer. We've looked at it for maybe the last couple of days. I go back and looked at how we were actually dealing with people in our own instance anyway. And anybody is entitled to make an application for rent supplement themselves for themselves, and they have been doing so. In fact, we've actually been providing emergency accommodation and bed and breakfasts for people until we get the rent supplement for them. So now what we've decided, and I think the Principal Officer has gone back to Safe Ireland today, to say the referrer can be either the lady or gentleman themselves, it can be the guard that refers to us, or it can be Tusla. We don't want to step on anybody's toes. Obviously Tusla and the local authority are the established agencies to provide a long-term resource and security for them. But we're certainly not going to turn anybody away, and our rent supplement application form has been rowed right back from 28 pages to 4 pages. And we're dealing with those people sensitively, compassionately, in a much faster way than maybe we would with somebody else. And that's not to say we're not dealing with everybody else fast. We are, but you know what I mean. Thank you. And I'm not sure, but are they being seen as a priority group? I think they have to be. Yeah. To be honest with you, there's not a huge amount of numbers of people in the last couple of months that applied for rent supplements. So that section is looking after people as they come in on the same day or next week. Yeah, because it's really important that they are, because they're largely invisible. My next question, and again, you've dealt with this here today, about over 66s, and the fact that if you're employed, and your employer's business is shut down, you're not entitled to the PUP, but you can access the temporary COVID wage subsidy scheme. However, if you're a sole trader, self-employed, you can access neither. Now, you did say that those people can access the supplementary welfare scheme. And my question is, if they do that, will that bring them up to the same level as the PUP? That's my first question. And I'll ask my second when I'm on my feet. Again, the issue of Debenhams has been raised here today, and I agree with you regarding their protests, etc. And you mentioned that the legislation is quite old, the 75 legislation. Now, we have the 1908 European legislation, but that's really about consultation, etc. But it does say in that legislation, and this is to paraphrase, that nothing in the legislation prevents a member state from ensuring more favourable terms for workers, etc. Now, I know it can't be retrospective, but in the context that probably we will see more of this, I would ask that maybe your department would look at that, because it seems as if Debenhams have blindsided the department to some extent, not touching blame, but it seems that has happened, and that it wouldn't happen again. And also, Minister, in the context of Brexit, because many UK firms will not see themselves as being bound by EU legislation or, at best, it will be a contested reality. Again, I think we need to keep that in mind when we're looking at updating our legislation. And a final comment that I just want to make. I have met quite a number of people who have no concept of the fact that their PUP payments, and indeed any social welfare payments, that all income is taxable. And that, come the end of the year, a lot of people are going to find themselves in a situation where the revenue are coming looking for tax that is owed. So many people have no concept of this. And I really think some kind of public awareness campaign is needed, Minister, immediately, because we're going to have terrible stories at the end of the year about this. It's not your fault, but as I said, so many people are on our way. Thank you. So to quickly answer your questions, the supplementary welfare doesn't try and bring everybody back up to the €350 payment. What it does is it looks at individual outgoings. And so your household might be different to my household if we were both over 66. But we're looking at people as individuals, what their outgoings are, whether they're obviously necessary, as in, you know, we might be paying for somebody's mortgage or rent, but not for a very large car if they had it. You know, I don't know, but like we're looking at people as individuals. And the second thing is, is that, yes, I'll give you copies of the letters as well, that have gone back and forth from mandates that clearly show the legal advice that I got from the Attorney General. But you are right. I think I said it earlier, earlier on. We need to probably convene now to look at what we should have learned and can learn from the interactions and the swiftness of Debenhams so that we're prepared if and when it does happen again. And very finally, yeah, you're right. All income is taxable. It will require people to do a self-declaration, obviously, at the end of the year. But the reason I haven't done an advertising campaign, and we've done lots over the last couple of weeks, not least of which to try and keep the radios and the newspapers with a little bit of revenue coming into them. But I don't know how the revenue commissioners are going to deal with this. And so it depends on whether they deal with it on a week one, month one basis. That will determine how we let people know what their entitlements or their obligations are. As soon as the revenue commissioners make up their mind, the department will do an advertising campaign. Thank you for sharing that they have again for our time. You