Labour environment spokesman Eamon Gilmore said he had lost count of the number of constituents on social welfare who could not take up offers of full-time employment because they would lose their rent supplement allowance.
He called for the replacement of rent supplement with a new form of housing support, which would be related to housing need and costs, the circumstances of the applicants and the rent levels pertaining in the area concerned.
"This new housing support should not discriminate between those on social welfare and those at work and its reduction should be tapered as income increases."
Mr Gilmore, moving a motion in Private Members' time, said that such a new form of housing support was necessary in the interest of fairness and to reduce the financial hardship on working households who had to rent in the private sector. It would also act to incentivise and reward rather than penalise those who took up paid employment.
"Rent supplement, as we know it, has served its time. It was introduced, in 1977, to provide short-term assistance with private rent. Hence its administration by the community welfare system."
Currently, said Mr Gilmore, more than 60,000 tenants in private rented accommodation received the rent supplement, at a total cost of about €400 million annually. At the beginning of the 1990s, the number of rent allowances was less than 30,000, and the annual cost was less than €50 million. "Put another way, there are now twice the number of households who are officially unable to pay their rent as there were before the Celtic Tiger." The 60,000 on rent supplement represented only a portion of those who could not afford their rent, said Mr Gilmore.
Minister for Social, Community and Family Affairs Séamus Brennan agreed there was a case for reforming the rent allowance, adding that it would be better if the money spent on it was available for permanent housing.
"I am open to reforming the rent allowance in some way, but it has to be practical and sensible. In solving one problem, we do not want to create another."
