Welfare cuts: Up to 4,000 people a year could be facing the threat of homelessness because of cuts in rent allowance announced this week, the housing agency Threshold has warned.
Mr Patrick Burke, the organisation's director, said it was a "disgrace" the Supplementary Welfare Allowance (SWA) rent supplement - on which 60,000 people depended at present - was being "effectively abolished" for new applicants "without anything being put in its place".
Of the 20,000 people who contacted Threshold last year, 20 per cent were in receipt of SWA and "that figure continues to grow," he remarked.
"Without this allowance people who leave home in a crisis situation may have no other choice than to become homeless."
The change, announced in Thursday's Estimates by the Minister for Social and Family Affairs, Ms Coughlan, gives health boards the power to refuse rent supplement where an applicant has not already been renting for a period of six months.
Existing recipients of the rent allowance will not be affected.
A spokeswoman for the Minister rejected the suggestion that the move was part of a "turf war" with the Department of the Environment over the provision of housing services. However, she said, "it would be correct" to say it wished to "focus their [the Department of the Environment's] attention on something that has maybe slipped their mind a bit."
One of the 16 reforms announced by Ms Coughlan is to refer future claimants for rent allowance to the relevant local authority so housing needs are assessed "in a more systematic manner".
The Minister said the allowance, which costs her Department €330 million a year, was designed to meet short-term maintenance needs, rather than paying for long-term housing.
"Is the Minister putting it up to the Department of the Environment?" Mr Burke asked. "If it is an inter-Departmental dispute the real victims are the people who are left out, and they will inevitably be the most vulnerable in society."
Thousands of social welfare recipients are due to be affected by the cuts.
Some 400 will be hit by a tightening of eligibility rules for disability, unemployment and health and safety benefits; 700 by a reduction in the duration of unemployment benefits to certain recipients; and 275 by an adjustment for those claiming unemployment and disability benefit.
The Department of Social and Family Affairs was unable to say how many people would be affected by the other reforms, including the tightening of eligibility rules for the third-level Back to Education Allowance. Some 4,431 people claimed the allowance in 2001/2002.
On the rent reforms, Focus Ireland chief executive Mr Declan Jones said, with average rents running at a minimum of €800 a month for a one-bed apartment, "this means people could be expected to pay nearly €5,800 in rent over six months before they quality for rent supplement."
Ms Frances Byrne, manager of the One Parent Exchange & Network, noted the Minister was effectively "phasing out rent allowance. There is not a community officer in the country who will give someone rent allowance if you manage without it for six months."
The concerns were echoed by trade unions representing community welfare officers with the secretary of SIPTU's health services professional branch Mr Tony Walsh saying the Government should "rethink its proposals and avoid creating further poverty traps with all of the consequential social issues that flow from them".
Mr Pat Bolger, vice chairman of IMPACT's community welfare officers' group, said "the Minister is pulling away the social safety net from thousands of social welfare recipients and children".
A spokeswoman for the Simon Community said the reforms demonstrated "a huge lack of joined- up thinking" in the Government. "Any block to the private rental sector is going to increase homelessness," she said.
Defending the reforms, Ms Coughlan said social welfare increases in the Budget would give them "additionality".
