Social Housing Passport Bill 2026: Second Stage [Private Members] Dail Éireann — 2026-07-09 ============================================================ Christopher O'Sullivan (FF), Cork South-West I thank all the Members who contributed. I reiterate - and it is not disingenuous to say - that I genuinely hear what they are saying. The proposal makes sense. I hope as well, however, that they will understand that, yes, we were able to do a focused protocol on people fleeing gender-based violence and domestic abuse. I might come back to some of the issues Deputy O'Reilly raised specifically. The broad national approach to this does require further consideration. I do not necessarily think it can be done on Committee Stage. Deputy Ó Broin asked me to use influence. I know where the Minister, Deputy Browne, stands on this and he does see value in what is proposed. Within the Department, we will use those interim 12 months wisely to research and assess the different issues I raised, such as the IT, the administration, the variation in approach and the pros and cons, for want of a better term. I gave the example in County Cork where, when the approach was changed in allocating houses in my home town of Clonakilty to people on a waiting list in Youghal on the other side of the country it was initially received with a bit of resistance but that is now the standardised approach. If we were to do this on a national level despite the terrible circumstances people will be fleeing, such as domestic abuse, I am sure the majority of people would fully understand those circumstances and the other circumstances we mentioned like education, work and health, etc. It just all needs to be assessed. I say again I think the proposals broadly make sense. As the Bill stands there remain significant unanswered questions concerning fairness between applicants, consistency between local authority systems, implementation, capacity, costs, governance arrangements and the feasibility of cross-jurisdictional operation. The all-Ireland approach raises further legal and practical difficulties as social housing support in Ireland and Northern Ireland operates under separate legislative, administrative and allocation frameworks. These are not peripheral issues. They are central issues. The Government believes that legislating before those matters have been fully examined would be premature. For that reason, we are proposing a timed amendment for a period of 12 months to allow further consideration of this Bill. That period would allow for detailed engagement with local authorities, other key stakeholders and relevant Departments to further examine the administrative, legal and financial implications and to allow a more comprehensive assessment of how mobility objectives might best be achieved without creating unintended consequences elsewhere in the system. This approach reflects a commitment to careful policymaking and to ensure that any future reforms are evidence based, practical and fair for all social housing applicants and tenants. Important flexibility already exists within the current framework. Local authorities have long provided significant mobility supports under existing legislation, as well as guidance, particularly to victims of domestic violence. For many years local authorities have supported victims and survivors of domestic violence under the Department's policy and procedural guidance for housing authorities in relation to assisting victims of domestic violence with emergency and long-term accommodation needs. This was first published in 2017. Through these arrangements local authorities can prioritise cases through allocation schemes and assist with access to HAP and RAS supports to work with existing social housing tenants where tenancy issues arise. More recently the Department has worked closely with local authorities, particularly through the CCMA housing committee with a range of stakeholders to develop the new protocol for victims and survivors of domestic, sexual and gender-based violence. To transfer social housing waiting lists between local authorities, the protocol will form part of the updated guidance currently being prepared by the Department. It has been positively received by organisations that work directly with and advocate for victims and survivors. The guidelines are from 2017. This is what has informed and guided local authorities with regard to situations where those who are fleeing domestic violence can be accommodated in other local authorities. Through the protocol, as the Deputy pointed out, if you are on the housing list that transfer is now possible. We are saying that we are going to update these guidelines. Perhaps that is the key opportunity to look at the situation outlined by Deputy O'Reilly where someone is a HAP tenant. Under the legislation someone who is a HAP tenant is considered housed. Deputy Ó Broin and I can both see the difficulty in that. There is an opportunity there when those guidelines are being updated. We are currently in the process of updating those guidelines. Perhaps that is something that can be------ --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-07-09/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-09-14T01:01:07+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-07-09