A senior official in the Department of Social and Family Affairs has confirmed there are concerns within the Department that the planned cut to the rent supplement will cause homelessness.
He said, however, the cut, one of the 16 announced by the Minister for Social and Family Affairs, Ms Coughlan, in last month's Estimates, would go ahead as planned.
The official, who did not want to be named, said regulations to underpin the cuts would be signed off "in days".
"There is no indication coming from Government at all that they should not go ahead," he said.
Discussions were at an advanced stage with other Departments, local authorities and the health boards on implementing them, he added.
Wednesday's Budget provided no indication that 16 welfare cuts would be reversed. However, at a press briefing Ms Coughlan indicated there was "wriggle room" on four of them - the cut in the rent supplement, crèche supplement, diet supplement and the Money Advice and Budgetary Service (MABS) supplement.
The Department official told The Irish Times yesterday that some of the cuts required changes to primary legislation, some to secondary legislation and some required just administrative changes. The cut undergoing most detailed discussion was that to the rent supplement.
"The Minister is very concerned to ensure that individual circumstances will be taken into account. No one wants to see people left on the streets." He said the change would be designed to cater for "deserving individual circumstances".
The main thrust of the change, however - that long-term housing provision was the responsibility of the Department of the Environment - stood.
He said he had met his opposite numbers in that Department and would meet health board officials next week "to tease out the issues and difficulties there" and "the technical issues emerging in drafting the regulations".
He said the Department of the Environment was "in agreement in principle" that it should take on the main burden of providing long-term social housing. There are currently 60,000 households on local authority housing waiting lists, up from 29,000 in 1996. The cut is likely to see this number increase substantially.
