2025-12-09

Before I begin, I send my support and the support of my party to young Cara Darmody, who has begun her 50-hour sit-out protest to demand timely assessments of need are delivered. It is shameful that a young woman has to do this over and over again but we are deeply inspired by her. Tá físeán a bhí curtha in airde ag an Roinn tithíochta ar na meáin shóisialta tar éis fearg millteanach a chruthú. Déanann an físeán iarracht dallamullóg a chur ar dhaoine maidir le freagracht an Rialtais as polasaí tithíochta atá tar éis an oiread sin daoine óga a bhrú le filleadh ar ais le cónaí sa bhaile lena dtuismitheoirí. Demeaning, hurtful, insulting and a two-fingered salute to an entire generation - these are the words people are using to describe the decision by the Minister's Government to share a video advising people how to cope with moving back into the family home. People in their 20s, 30s and 40s are forced to move back in with their parents. I know SpunOut helped with this video. It is a very good organisation that does great work. It is no reflection on it or the young people in the video but it should not be left to a youth organisation to clean up Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael's mess.

Hear, hear.

The decision by this Government to share the video has caused fierce anger. The video suggests that those forced to move back in with their parents should help around the house so they will be viewed as adults. God almighty, how patronising is that? Did anybody in the Government look at this video before it was shared on the official platforms by the Department of housing? Did anybody think about how people would react? Two weeks ago, I stood here on Leader's Questions and I raised the case of a young couple forced to move back into their parents' house. They were forced to do that because they could not afford the rent any longer. That couple are now planning to head to Australia. Last night, I was thinking about them and the hurt they would feel after seeing this video. However, they are not alone. The hard reality is that two thirds of 18- to 34-year-olds are still living with their parents. The number of young people forced to live with their family is increasing at a faster rate than in any other country in Europe. Why? Under the Minister's Government, home ownership has collapsed for an entire generation. We see it all again today in black and white in the report from the Society of Chartered Surveyors Ireland. A total of 80% cannot afford to rent an average apartment built this year. Is it any wonder so many people do not see a future here? The Government's policies are forcing them to choose between moving back into the box room or leaving Ireland for the opportunity of a better life in Australia or Canada. These are the choices they have to make when they should be here, building a future, starting relationships and starting families. Instead, their lives are being put on hold. If this Government gave a damn about our young people, what it would be doing is bringing action forward to bring home ownership back into reach and get runaway rents under control. What is the Government doing? Instead, it is doing the opposite. It chooses to make things even worse. It is going to push ahead with legislation that will see young people hit with big rent increases come next March. What I want to say to young people out there and those watching today is that we are going to keep fighting for them here. Sinn Féin will keep fighting for them. We will have their back to make things better and ensure they can build a good future and an affordable life here in Ireland. I will ask the Minister the question many young people have asked me in the last number of hours: does he see why young people are offended and hurt by the Government sharing this video? Does he accept that it is wrong for this Government to make young people feel that they are somehow at fault for its housing crisis?

In the first instance, this video and the information campaign are not a direct Department of housing campaign. As the Deputy said himself, it is something that has been developed by SpunOut, Ireland's youth information and support platform, and the Housing Agency, who ran this campaign. It was developed by young people and it is based on their experiences. Like all of us in this House, I recognise the need to do everything we can to improve the availability and delivery of social and affordable homes right across our country. It has been the single biggest issue in our review of the national development plan. It has been our focus in terms of infrastructure. We are enabling infrastructure in energy, water and transport to ramp up the delivery of social and affordable homes. To look at the delivery the Minister, Deputy Browne, has advanced, completions for the first three quarters of 2025 are the highest since 2008. Housing supply has increased significantly over the last five years, with over 158,000 new homes delivered since the beginning of 2020. Rent pressure zones have been extended nationwide, capping increases at 2%. Cost-rental tenancies have been introduced, offering secure rents at least 25% below the market rent. We have extended the rent tax credit to 2028. We have increased the provision of social housing, with nearly 16,000 new homes delivered in 2023-2024, the highest number since the 1970s. As a Government, we are stepping up when it comes to State intervention on the provision of housing across the economy. I accept that for many young people, rents are still too expensive in our cities and towns and across the country. That is why the intervention from the State is centrally important. Similarly, when it comes to housing supply, we have stood up to the needs in terms of the provision of social housing in our economy. We have extended the first home scheme and the help to buy scheme to help the affordability when it comes to the provision of homes across our country. We want to do everything possible, in terms of the State's role, to support that increased supply of homes right across our country. That is why in the budget we took tax measures to improve the viability of apartments and other interventions when it came to the reduction of VAT on apartments from 13.5% to 9%. That will strengthen the viability of housing supply across the country. Everyone on this side of the House is absolutely fully aware of the need to do more when it comes to the delivery of social and affordable homes. That is reflected fully in our national development plan. It is reflected in the extension of many of the schemes, subsidies and supports-----

It is taking a while to build them.

-----which will improve the supply of social and affordable homes. We want to do more across our country with the local authorities to zone more land to ensure that housing supply increases. That is the number one issue for the Government. The Minister, Deputy Browne, has taken a number of interventions over the last number of months with regard to the rental market, taxation decisions and the new housing plan, all to deliver increased housing supply so that people can own and buy their own home here. In respect of Sinn Féin's policies, it rejects the help to buy scheme which has helped thousands of young couples. It has some made-up policy on affordable homes where the people do not actually own the land underneath the homes they want to own. Sinn Féin’s policies on housing would undermine housing supply and, again, the viability gap is something it continuously ignores. Sinn Féin rejected the reduction of VAT on apartments which is critical to improve the supply of apartments, particularly in our cities. This Government will continue to do everything in terms of our policy response to ensure we build more social and affordable homes-----

The Government is helping developers with €100,000 per apartment.

------and increase and make viable the overall provision of homes over the next number of months and years.

The Minister is not listening and he is not hearing. He does not understand what it feels like for people in their 20s, 30s or even 40s who have been forced to move back into their parents’ house and are now living in the box room when the Department of housing shares a video saying that maybe they should do the dishes when they are at home so they will be seen as an adult. Can the Minister understand how hurtful that is or the lack of hope that is out there? When I was in my 20s I was married, I built my house and I had my first two children. There is an entire generation out there whose lives are on hold or, worse still, an entire generation out there who are no longer here because they have lost hope. They have lost hope under Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael because they see that house prices are runaway prices, they see what the Government is doing with rents and that it is going to push them up further, and they see that home ownership has collapsed. They have given up. Does the Minister, Deputy Chambers, accept that the Department of housing releasing that video, sharing that video, was hurtful to so many people who, under the Government's policies, have been forced to move back into their parents' box room?

The Deputy is misrepresenting how that video was made and created. It was made by SpunOut, a youth organisation. It was not-----

I did not say the Department made it.

That particular video was not something that was made by the Department of housing.

Deputy Doherty did not say the Department made it; he said it shared it.

It is business as usual.

It was made by SpunOut, a youth organisation in the State and I just want to be clear on that. I am absolutely clear that I want to ensure young people build a future here and have a future with well paid jobs-----

And do the dishes and all that.

-----and with more social and affordable homes built right across our country. I want to do that by managing the economy in a way that ensures they have a future here into the long term, something the Deputy just takes for granted every time he gets up and down when it comes to finance issues. My message is absolutely clear. We want them to build a future here and our commitment is there in the national development plan, with nearly €50 billion, between Exchequer and non-Exchequer funds, across all the enabling infrastructure and subsidy for housing support. This is a central priority that we made in the new national development plan so people can build a future in this country. This is why we want to ramp up housing supply with the other interventions that we have made.

Delivery of new apartments fell by nearly one quarter last year and completions for this year are expected to fall another 25%. It is no surprise. In the budget the Minister slashed tax for private developers but he did nothing to tackle land speculation, even as land hoarding runs rampant. In the greater Dublin area alone figures show that almost 41,000 permissions for apartments lie dormant. They say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results, yet the Minister did the same thing last year and the year before. In Fianna Fáil they just cannot help themselves. They keep chasing the private developer model even when presented with all the evidence that it does not work. Far from cutting costs or delivering more homes, the Government's VAT cut is simply being absorbed by developers. It is a benefit for the private sector and there is no evidence it will address what the Minister, Deputy Chambers, has just called that "viability gap". It is a direct wealth transfer from a society locked out of affordable housing into the pockets of those shutting them out. It is an incoherent and contradictory policy. The Minister must fancy his chances at the FIFA prize for housing if that should ever come to pass. If the budget primed the locked-out generation for disappointment, the Government's housing plan has pushed them over the edge. We have seen no action on the land speculation, which is delaying delivery, and the reality of land speculation delaying delivery. We see nothing to support small developers who want to help deal with the crisis. There is no move to transform the Land Development Agency into a State construction company that is capable of delivering homes at scale. The Government's strategic housing activation office, so-called, still has no one individual person at the helm. It is tsarless and directionless. We have no idea what it will do yet and after 11 months of waiting the Government's plan looks more like what they call "busy work", rather than a blueprint for change. All the trends are going in the wrong direction. Despite the litany of measures the Minister has just articulated, the reality is that having wrongly overstated the housing figures last year under then Minister for housing, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, the Government will miss its building targets again this year. Construction activity has declined for the seventh month in a row. The number of children in homelessness is, shockingly, climbing towards the 5,500 mark. In a move that is beyond satire, the State is even funding the excellent SpunOut organisation to advise young people by video on how to cope with the move back to their parents' house when it is the Government that has priced them out of the rental and purchase markets. It would be comical if it was not so serious, with 80% of the population priced out of renting and 60% not being able to afford to buy a house on their salary. It is clear that the Government's policies are simply not achieving for people. We have seen it with the help-to-buy scheme and the first home scheme. When will the Minister finally accept that his Government's policies are failing? When will we see the radical reset of housing policy that the Housing Commission sought and that aspiring homeowners and aspiring home renters throughout the country so desperately need?

I thank the Deputy. First of all, I will state the facts around what we are doing to invest in housing throughout our country. On the capital side, approximately €7.2 billion is being provided in the recently-published national development plan for 2025 with an additional €4 billion around current expenditure. That is more than €11 billion of State investment for the provision of housing, supporting the Department of housing in that work. What the Deputy failed to mention in her commentary and her analysis is that complementing the need to ramp up social and affordable homes is that we have to have a viable housing market. Everything she says is about a State construction company and is attacking any measure that we make in terms of viability on the VAT side. She has attacked the apartment guidelines and attacks anything that relates to having a functioning market. Many young people living in this State want to own and buy their own homes. They want to have private development happen along with the social and affordable provision we are providing throughout the country. We are making significant progress on the provision of social homes. Over recent years we have seen the highest level of social housing delivery in decades, delivered by this Government and by the last one. We continued and extended the help-to-buy scheme - something the Deputy continually questions - an intervention on affordability in housing. She criticises such things as the first home scheme as a policy, which is another intervention to support affordability in housing supply. What we do not hear from Members on the opposite side is measures needed to ensure we have a viable market for housing. The State is stepping up when it comes to its role, as I said, in social and affordable housing but we have to narrow the viability gap. The Deputy correctly referenced the report's findings in terms of the high cost of apartment construction. We have sought to narrow that gap with the measure on VAT from 13.5% to 9%, for example, and to increase viability with the apartment guidelines. We have enhanced the corporate tax deduction to reduce the cost of delivery of an apartment for cost rental. We have taken a number of measures to try to narrow that viability gap-----

It is not-----

-----so that many of the uncommenced planning permissions for apartments are commenced in order that young people can buy and live in them. I have not heard from the Deputy any measure that she would take to enable the market to increase overall housing supply. We know from the Department of Finance that about €20 billion of capital is required to reach 50,000 homes per year. The State is stepping up on its side of social and affordable housing provision. However, to bridge the gap, we need a viable housing market where people can buy and own their own homes. One of the central issues is that we have had a significant viability gap in recent years. This Government has taken practical steps under the Minister, Deputy James Browne, to address that gap but the Deputy would make it worse. Housing supply would fall under her proposals because she rejects every measure that has been taken in terms of narrowing the viability gap.

That is not true.

We need a more realistic conversation about housing supply if we are serious about addressing it.

Unfortunately, anyone listening will realise that, of course, we in opposition put forward reasonable, costed constructive proposals. Indeed, the Labour Party supported the Land Development Agency. We support the tenant in situ scheme. We support measures that are proven to assist people who wish to be able to buy or rent their own homes - the generation that has been locked out of home ownership or even home rental. What the Minister tends to do in government is focus on what the Opposition has not done. He never acknowledges that we have put forward sustainable costed alternatives to his failed measures. The Government's measures have patently failed. Among the constructive proposals that we put forward are to look at other countries. Let us look at other countries that have models that work. In Vienna, 40% of the rental stock is owned by limited-profit housing associations. Low-, high- and middle-income earners there all have access to stable long-term homes. There are long-term fixed-interest loans providing financial stability to those who wish to have a home of their own. In Ireland, as the Minister keeps saying to us, the issue is not money but how it is spent.

I call the Minister to respond.

The Government is choosing to spend it in the wrong way. Of course, there is space for the private market but the Government absolutely neglects the huge role the State could and should be playing to ensure people can get a home.

The State has never played a bigger role in the provision of housing in terms of subsidies, supports and the intervention-----

It is the wrong way, subsidising developers.

Deputy, please.

That is reflected in terms of the provision of social housing and in the role of the LDA. This Government brought in cost rental and has expanded cost rental to help affordability of rents for young people. We have extended the help-to-buy scheme. We have the first home scheme. The Deputy did not respond with what she would do to take practical steps to ensure we have-----

This manifests-----

-----a viable housing market. There are many thousands of young couples who want to buy and own their own homes. The State plays a certain role in terms of the enabling provisions around infrastructural development in the economy and also supporting it through help to buy and other affordability schemes, but we also need to ensure that the market can deliver the other element of housing supply in addition to what we are doing on social and affordable homes. We welcome the fact the Labour Party supports the Land Development Agency, LDA. We further capitalised the LDA in recent weeks. We have set out the most ambitious, radical step-change in the State's intervention in housing in the national development plan, which will result in a significant ramping up of the supply of social and affordable homes.

Thank you, Minister. Deputy Ivana Bacik.

But the other elements of housing supply involve the market functioning-----

Thank you, Minister. The time is up.

-----to meet the overall supply targets and those are the practical steps this Government is taking.

Deputy Ivana Bacik of the Social Democrats. Excuse me, Deputy Holly Cairns of the Social Democrats.

A second round.

I am sorry.

Go raibh maith agat, a Cheann Comhairle. Disabled people have been failed by this Government. In its record €9.4 billion budget, developers and fast food chains were prioritised. They have been handed tax breaks that will cost the State nearly €5 billion over the next four years. To help pay for that, the income of disabled people was slashed. According to the Disability Federation of Ireland, people's allowances have been reduced by €1,400. This is devastating for so many people who are barely scraping by. Successive Governments have ignored the rights of disabled people but their treatment by this Government feels particularly cruel. That is why so many people are protesting outside the Dáil today - they feel betrayed. Both the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste promised during the election that disabled people would be prioritised, but at the first available opportunity those commitments were abandoned. This Government seems to think income supports for disabled people are somehow optional, because they were cut to the bone. We have heard a lot from this Government about the need to target resources at those who need them most. That was apparently the guiding principle behind this budget. That is a nice soundbite but it does not stand up to any scrutiny because we know that huge numbers of disabled people are living in poverty. Every day, people are struggling not just with the soaring costs we all face in energy, food and housing, but with the enormous additional cost of having a disability. This is why a weekly cost-of-disability payment is precisely the kind of support the Government should be prioritising, but instead of doing that, the Government did the opposite and reduced people's incomes, pushing them even further into poverty. One of the many payments in the Minister's pre-election giveaway budget was a one-off cost-of-disability payment. A one-off payment for an everyday cost was obviously insulting enough, but then, incredibly, the Government abolished the payment entirely and did not replace it with anything, as if the costs of having a disability somehow disappeared overnight. It is nothe first time targeted supports for disability have been removed at the stroke of a pen. In 2013 personal transport grants for disabled people were abolished. At the time the Fine Gael-Labour Government said it would replace it immediately and more than a decade later there is still no sign of it. One of the many payments in the Minister's pre-election giveaway budget was a one-off cost-of-disability payment. A one-off payment for an everyday cost was obviously insulting enough, but then, incredibly, the Government abolished the payment entirely and did not replace it with anything, as if the costs of having a disability somehow disappeared overnight. It is not the first time that targeted supports for disability have been removed at the stroke of a pen. In 2013, personal transport grants for disabled people were abolished. At the time, the Fine Gael-Labour Government said it would replace it immediately. More than a decade later, there is still no sign of it. The people protesting today are telling the Government how they feel - how they feel about the litany of broken promises, how they feel about consistently being failed, and how they feel about their Government slashing their income by €1,400 in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis.

Thank you, Deputy.

The question is whether the Government is going to listen to them and whether it is going to act. These cuts were callous and cruel and should be reversed.

The Minister to respond.

Will the Government introduce a winter payment for disabled people and-----

The time is up, Deputy.

-----will it finally introduce a permanent cost-of-disability payment?

I thank Deputy Cairns. The Taoiseach chaired the first meeting of the delivery and monitoring committee for the National Human Rights Strategy for Disabled People 2025-2030, where we are trying to work on a serious of actions to make sure we have a step-change in the provision of disability services over the lifetime of this Government. Budget 2026 was the first opportunity to show our commitment to this strategy and if we look at the funding achieved by the Minister, Deputy Foley, in the context of the disability budget, a 20% increase in funding was secured, which will deliver stronger mainstream services and also targeted social protection supports for households with disabilities. The strategy is our roadmap to 2030 and sets out a series of measures that will be led from the Department of the Taoiseach. The Deputy asked about social protection in particular. That is why, as part of the overall budgetary allocation, a €10 increase in weekly social welfare rates was progressed in budget 2026. We have also progressed the highest ever increases to the child support payment, a €20 increase in the domiciliary care allowance and a €5 increase in the fuel allowance. People moving from disability allowance or blind pension into work will also retain their fuel allowance for five years and, where relevant, will now qualify for the back to work family dividend. The earnings disregard for carer’s allowance will rise in July 2026. We have taken a number of measures in the social protection package to support people with disabilities. We will also expand the wage subsidy scheme from April 2026. As I said, we have taken a number of measures to improve the fuel allowance. In the education system, €3 billion is being allocated to special education for children with additional needs. There are measures across the education system, social protection and the transport system, where the Minister, Deputy O'Brien, has advanced measures. Some €25 million is being allocated for accessibility improvements, the disabled drivers and passengers scheme is being increased, and a co-designed new scheme from next year will make more people eligible. We have taken a number of steps across multiple Departments to try to improve the day-to-day experience for people living with disabilities. Central to that has been the funding secured by the Minister, Deputy Foley, specifically for her budget to ramp up the level of intervention that we make for service provision. That was reflected in the work programme and the work that will happen next year in terms of the overall level of support and service provision for people with disabilities. Obviously, the work is ongoing on the budgetary provision for next year for the social protection package. We will consider, with engagement with everyone in the disability sector, further requests around different support payments. You have to take the social protection package in the round, and we did increase the core welfare rates significantly this year.

The Minister is saying there will be a committee to start looking at schemes. I want to highlight the fact there has been committee after committee after committee on disability, and there has been report after report after report, and they all have the same finding: there is a huge added cost to having a disability. We know that people with disabilities in Ireland are living in consistent poverty above and beyond other European countries. We know they have a lower chance of being employed as disabled persons in this country. The Government has had all the committees and reports it needs. People are outside protesting today to tell the Government that they just need action now. They do not need another committee or another report. They do not need to wait until the next budget. There is a cost-of-living crisis now. Disabled people were already disproportionately living in poverty, and now their payments have been cut. I am going to again ask the Minister the two questions that I initially asked. Will the Government introduce an emergency winter disability payment? Will it finally introduce a permanent cost-of-disability payment? The last budget before this one recognised the cost of disability. Now, the Government has abandoned it.

I reject the assertion that we have had committees and no action has been taken. That is actually untrue. The 20% increase in funding for the Department of disability and the work the Minister, Deputy Foley, is now doing with the HSE on a new service plan will provide a significant improvement in the State's response to improve disability services in 2026. There is a record level of funding to support people with disabilities. When it comes to the Department of Social Protection, as I said, we introduced a series of measures around the fuel allowance, improving core welfare rates and increasing the domiciliary care allowance and back to work family dividend. We have been clear that the budget we have agreed for 2026 is the settled allocation for next year. Of course, we will engage with all the stakeholders involved around budget 2027, and that will be considered as part of next year's budget. The payments referenced by the Deputy were one-off measures taken in previous years. We were clear in how we developed budget 2026 that the measures we would take had to be permanent, sustainable and affordable. We have made a significant intervention in the social protection package.

The law of the land is clear. Section 39(10)(b) of the defective concrete blocks Act 2022 sets out the powers of the appeals board. It may direct the Housing Agency or a local authority to reconsider a decision in line with the board's directions or it may replace the decision entirely with a new determination. That is what the Oireachtas intended. That is the safeguard homeowners were told they had but in place is a safeguard that is an absolute fiction. Of the appeals heard so far, the panel has found serious and significant errors of law in the Housing Agency's decisions. These are not minor matters but fundamental failures. When this has happened, every one of these cases has been sent straight back and the homeowners have been left under absolute pressure with no decisions made. Not once have these been overturned. The only power the appeals board never uses is the one that would work, which is delivering justice. Instead of independent appeals we have a closed loop where the State appeals to itself, reviews itself and then reaffirms its own decisions, sometimes doing nothing more than tidying up the paperwork. This is not independence; this is institutional self-protection. It leaves homeowners trapped in the same system that failed them, with their homes still crumbling down around them. No other appeals body in the State operates this way, not in planning appeals, not in social welfare appeals and not in procurement appeals. In every other system, when the original decision-maker gets it seriously wrong, they do not get the chance to make that decision again so why is this the standard for people and families with defective concrete homes? This week amendments are being brought forward to legislation the Government says is intended to improve the scheme for applicants. This is now essential because the Housing Agency has made failed decisions and it should not be given a second opportunity to do this. It is an error of law that has been identified. The appeals board must be required to use the power given to it by statute to issue a replacement decision and the Housing Agency must be removed from the appeals process. This will cost the State nothing. It will restore fairness and transparency. Homeowners deserve a real appeal not a circular motion dressed up as due process. They deserve a system that protects them. The Government amendment Bill this week will make it explicit that where the appeals board finds a significant error of law or fact, the board must issue a replacement decision and a case cannot be sent back to the Housing Agency that made the flawed decision in the first place. It is a really simple; it is a "Yes" or a "No".

I thank the Deputy. The current Government and the previous one stepped up to support many households affected by defective concrete blocks. That is reflected in the increased allocation in recent years. Over 2025 funding increased by over 50% and following the Revised Estimates process, the budget for homes damaged by the use of defective concrete blocks increased by a further €60 million, bringing the revised allocation to €130 million. As the scheme ramps up, additional funding will be provided to support the households who are progressing through the scheme. The Government is also making sure the scheme is designed and delivered in a manner that meets the real needs of homeowners in an efficient and fair manner. I know the Deputy asked about the appeals process. Appeals are covered by a statutory process under the appeals panel, led by a senior counsel and with experts from the legal and engineering professions appointed by the Minister under a clear and transparent process managed by the Public Appointments Service. The appeals system is an independent statutory function under the 2022 legislation and it has now begun to issue the terminations to appellants and has accelerated its work in recent weeks. Section 39 of the Act states that: Where it is considers it necessary for the purpose of ensuring fair procedures in the consideration of an appeal, the Appeal Board may require a party of the appeal to provide the Appeal Board ... such further information in writing as the Appeal Board considers necessary, and ... [they will be] given an opportunity to make submissions in relation to that information. The appeal board has been writing to the Housing Agency seeking clarification in some instances in an effort to assist homeowners in their cases. We have clear statutory provisions. It is independent, which is important to keep the fairness and integrity in the appeals mechanism within the scheme. The programme for Government also commits to undertaking a planned review of the legislation underpinning the scheme. This refers to the fact that the legislation mandates the Minister to review the scheme within three years of the Act's commencement, so that is by July 2026. All aspects of the Act will be kept under review, including the appeals process. If changes are required they may be made then, and not through the current amendment Bill which is focused on other matters at this time, particularly increasing the amount of money paid to homeowners. We have a clear and transparent process that is set out and reflected in the legislation. If you take the procedures that are set out and the nomination process that is guided through that, it is important that that is allowed to do its work in the context of appeals that are made.

My constituents are coming into the office all the time and are contacting us. Their lives are being determined by the decisions of the Housing Agency as to whether they can rebuild their house and move on with their lives. When they request evidence behind the life-changing decisions, they receive black pages with ink all over them. It is heavily redacted. FOI was sought and refused and then overturned by the Information Commissioner. This is not transparency. Even more alarming is the Housing Agency record retention policy. Section 7, page 8, allows draft versions of files replaced by the final versions to be disposed of. Destroying records in these circumstances is indefensible. It undermines accountability and violates best record keeping standards. It fuels fears among the homeowners that there is stuff going on. Will the Minister immediately order the Housing Agency to preserve all records and release unredacted evidence underpinning these decisions? This is a simple "Yes" or "No" question. Just give me a "Yes" or "No" answer to that question.

I have set out the legislative provisions underpinning the appeals process. It is clear that neither the Minister nor the Department has any influence on the operation of the appeals that exist. Any involvement is purely on an administrative basis. All public bodies hold records and have a duty to provide information as appropriate. Maybe it is withheld because of particular matters relating to the privacy of an individual. I do not know the facts behind every FOI or release of information which has been requested. It depends on each particular case connected to the Housing Agency's involvement. We have an independent statutory function set up to oversee appeals. That is, as I said, done with independent people appointed by the Public Appointments Service. If any changes are required to the operation of the appeals, that can be considered in the context of the three-year review which is set out under the current legislation.