Richard Boyd Barrett: Appeals Must Be Independent in Housing Debate

Yeah, well look, first of all, just to repeat that, I mean, to me the idea that the same body that makes a decision on eligibility for social housing or aspects of social housing support or emergency accommodation will also handle appeals, it's just ridiculous, right? And I don't know how the Minister, frankly, can stand over it, and one thing actually just to clarify, I mean, in an area where I'm struggling to get my head around what you're doing here, right, and lots of people who are legal experts and all the rest of it are struggling to really fully understand the complexities of what you're doing, the idea that people who are not sort of like specialists and trained in this area at every local authority level are going to have to kind of grapple with appeals in a difficult and complex area, it just doesn't make any sense to me. Whereas, you know, like I think about the social protection appeal system, it's one of the things that works. I find it really helpful when there's difficulties around social welfare decisions, you go to the social welfare appeals because it's kind of above, it's a more independent process and it's far, far better. And the fact that you won't replicate that here, I just, is baffling to me. But I just want to clarify something, because I'm genuinely trying to get my head around this. One of the things I've raised again and again and again are decisions around medical prioritisation, right, and where doctors put forward appeals to local authorities over often complex medical and health conditions, saying that that condition requires people to be prioritised for housing. And people who don't have the same qualifications are making decisions on these things, who don't have those medical qualifications. And then you might appeal that, you might appeal it to the next level. The idea that that's not going to go to people who are completely independent and who would be, you know, like properly trained and have the skills and so on, and that you have people second guessing doctors or specialists or consultants, which often happens in refusal of these things. That is grossly unfair. And it defies any notion of kind of like fair procedure or justice, surely. But can I just clarify that that is the case here? So you won't have the right to an independent appeal on things like that. It's not just on the residency stuff and the habitual, that you're not going to have any kind of proper independent appeal on all areas of eligibility, social housing supports. And the appeal within the local authority to somebody other than who was the decision, the initial decision maker, but local authorities have to deal with triage and prioritisation. I mean, it wouldn't be sustainable, I don't believe anyway, for local authority, which is the housing agency, to manage a housing list where, you know, a medical professional who does not have to concern themselves with who else has a medical need, you know, in that same local authority as to who is going to get that prioritisation. What I am doing, for example, in the case of disabilities, is now bringing in social housing targets as part of, sorry, disability housing, for example, as part of the social housing targets to significantly ensure that the necessary housing for people with needs are now provided and kind of change that current situation where it's back and forth between local authorities and HSE. And who exactly is meant to be prioritised and what exactly they're meant to have. The local authorities now are going to, at a substantial pace, deliver those properties and kind of break that chicken and egg that's been there in the past. So I think that will make a significant inroad into the various situations the deputy is talking about. Because I shared the deputy's concerns in the sense of whatever about, you know, the medical professional's letter and how that should be interpreted. And different professionals, different as well. I've sat in my clinics and seen people with identical medical conditions with different doctors, different specialists coming in with different strengths of letters, you know. And people shouldn't be decided purely on the basis of your own doctor's view on the impact of your medical condition vis-à-vis your housing need either. The housing specialists, those in the local authorities. But I do share that I think the higher level issue that the deputy is kind of raising it is why should there be that battle in a local authority between people who have medical needs because of a lack of supply. So building in social housing, disability housing targets, both for those who need independent living and those who need in-cares. That is not to send us back and forward. That the local authorities are actually delivering those at a pace, not only with those who are known to the system on the HSC list who need adapted houses or in-care living support, but also headroom for those who we know, we may not know the individual, but we know they're coming on the list. There are people out there today with MS, primary aggressive MS, Parkinson's, for example, not on a social housing list, but I guarantee you they're going to end up in your clinic, Owen's clinic, my clinic in a couple of years' time. We don't know who they are, but unfortunately their condition will worsen. What I've said as well in these targets, there has to be headroom because those people are coming, we don't know who they are, and I think it will make a substantial difference. Granted, we'll see those houses coming in beginning in 2027 and then at a substantial pace in 2028-29 due to the need of getting them into the pipeline, if you will. I share the Deputy's, if you like, ultimate concern here, and what I want to do is actually address that at a more substantive level, that we don't have either people in housing authorities or medical professionals trying to fight over who's going to get that one adapted house. So I'm trying to address that, and I believe that will be successful. Deputy Sheehan is hoping to get in there. The problem is that decisions are being made on the basis of officials, and I understand the pressure that's on them, by the way. The official is under pressure because they know they don't have enough houses to allocate, and that is then influencing their judgement on medical matters or welfare matters. Now, those two things, they shouldn't. A medical and welfare matter is a medical and welfare matter, and the people who need to be heard there are specialists. And okay, I would take a point that may be a first opinion or the opinion of a... you know, you could make that argument, although frankly, you know, I'd be very, very careful about having people who are not medical professionals or not professionals in particular areas second-guessing people who are because of resource issues. But the idea that then you're going to appeal decisions made on those grounds to the same body, possibly to the same people, or certainly people who work in the same environment and with the same pressures, when very serious issues that require specialist knowledge are at stake, right, in terms of vulnerable, sick people, that's just... to me, that's not on. That is not on, and surely the obvious thing to do is have a body at a sort of centralised level who can look at those things and where they have the requisite skills and knowledge and so on to actually adjudicate on the proper grounds, i.e. health and welfare grounds, you know, has a decision around housing for this person, but you know, is it fair? Is it a fair and reasonable decision? And that's, for me, one of the reasons why we need a sort of centralised appeal system. But that's not what we're getting here. And obviously many of the people that we're dealing with are affected by the habitual residence and stuff like that. A lot of the time we're talking about quite vulnerable people on health grounds and welfare situations in terms of children, the well-being of children and so on. So, to me, that's very, very problematic. But, yeah, okay. Thank you.