social housing 'representations' = corruption?

urbanachiever1

i recently wrote to my local politicians with regard to housing issues in my area. I happened to mentioned that I was on the social housing list but did not insinuate that I wanted any advice on this particular issue. In responses, both the FF and FG politician offered to make 'representations on my behalf' to the local housing authority in order to help with my application. I would have thought that houses are offered to applicants on a needs basis and that the system was independent of influence by other parties. Are these politicians offering to corrupt the system?

Chips Lovell

Generally speaking, no.

What happens is that your TD will write to relevant local authority or government department "making representations" on your behalf. They'll write something like "My consituent Mr X has been on the housing list for X months and urgently requires housing because of X, Y and Z". The local authority will then reply and say something along the lines of "Mr X is currently in 20th position on the housing list. We anticipate that x number of people will be housed over the coming year".

The whole point of this charade is that it allows your TD to come back to you and say he "made representations" on your behalf.

There's a small army of civil and public servants who spend a significant chunk of their time answering these kinds of letters. Most of the time they serve no purpose other than enabling a politician to say he tried to do something for you.

If the TD really wants to impress you, he'll ask a parliamentary question about it. It's usually the same dance, but the reply will take up more civil service time as it often gets passed up the approval chain to a senior level.

Godge

Jep Gambardella wrote: »

Generally speaking, no.

What happens is that your TD will write to relevant local authority or government department "making representations" on your behalf. They'll write something like "My consituent Mr X has been on the housing list for X months and urgently requires housing because of X, Y and Z". The local authority will then reply and say something along the lines of "Mr X is currently in 20th position on the housing list. We anticipate that x number of people will be housed over the coming year".

The whole point of this charade is that it allows your TD to come back to you and say he "made representations" on your behalf.

There's a small army of civil and public servants who spend a significant chunk of their time answering these kinds of letters. Most of the time they serve no purpose other than enabling a politician to say he tried to do something for you.

If the TD really wants to impress you, he'll ask a parliamentary question about it. It's usually the same dance, but the reply will take up more civil service time as it often gets passed up the approval chain to a senior level.

The one political reform in the Dail that would make the greatest sense would be to disallow parliamentary questions on individual issues like that that hadn't been to the Ombudsman yet.

If the Ombudsman rules against an individual, then the government Department has followed procedure and policy and it is the policy and procedure that should be taking up Dail time, not Mrs. Murphy's pension or Mr. Smith's place on the housing list.

It is also the one political reform that the politicians will never agree to for the reasons you set out in your post - they can claim some credit for it.

Cookie_Monster

Jep Gambardella wrote: »

There's a small army of civil and public servants who spend a significant chunk of their time answering these kinds of letters. Most of the time they serve no purpose other than enabling a politician to say he tried to do something for you.

while the politician doing it is bad enough, the department staff at the very least should be pushing back with standard responses stating political interference will not be considered or similar.

Victor

urbanachiever1 wrote: »

I would have thought that houses are offered to applicants on a needs basis and that the system was independent of influence by other parties. Are these politicians offering to corrupt the system?

Corruption, in the traditional sense, no. Clientelism, yes. There is a case for individuals to have someone advocate for them, but I would prefer that person to not be a politician (or often, a member of their staff).

Imagine you have three cases:
* High priority case, correct paperwork
* Medium priority case, incorrect paperwork
* Low priority case, correct paperwork

Because the medium priority case has incorrect paperwork, the low priority case will get ahead of them. Having someone, the politician in this case, go through the paperwork / and or otherwise raise issues can mean the correct priority is given.