We are in the midst of a housing crisis, as the Minister is well aware. Tens of thousands of householders are in mortgage distress, almost 100,000 people are on social housing lists, 78,000 are in receipt of rent supplement and 5,000 are designated as homeless.

As part of this Government's solution to that housing crisis, we will today conclude the Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2014, which will see the introduction of a housing assistance payment. The housing assistance payment is the most profound change in policy in regard to housing in a generation. It not only changes the way in which people will receive rent supplement, but it will transfer responsibility for providing housing to the private market on a scale never seen before. People in receipt of rent supplement for 18 months or more will be transferred to this new payment and, as a result, will be removed from council housing lists.

Some 78,000 households are in receipt of rent supplement and 50,000 of them have been in receipt of it for 18 months or more. Fine Gael and the Labour Party, by passing this Bill, will condemn those families to a future of insecurity. They are denying them a real home. They will be left at the mercy of the market. I do not know whether the Minister understands the full consequences of what will happen to those 50,000 families if this Bill is passed. Is he so out of touch that he thinks it will be anything other than a contract to reduce social housing waiting numbers?

It is no surprise that Fine Gael is in favour of such a Bill because it has no interest in social housing, and that has long been established in this House. It has very little interest in the people who live in them, given the austerity it has imposed on those families. However, for a Labour Party Minister to lead this charge is truly shocking and I am very disappointed in the Minister of State, Deputy Jan O'Sullivan. Given that 50,000 families will lose their place on housing lists and the immense distress which will be caused to those families, will the Labour Party finally stand up and be the watchdog of Fine Gael rather than the lap-dog it has become in recent years and stop this Bill from passing today?

Every single party welcomed the Bill on Second Stage.

In fairness, that is a pretty hackneyed cliché. Sometimes I am completely taken aback by how conservative Sinn Féin is. It seems to want to retain the status quo. For the period of time I have been in government, I have heard Deputies opposite, including, prominently, Sinn Féin, whingeing about the housing rental supplement and how it assists poverty traps and prevented people from going back to work. Although it is not my area, to my knowledge, nobody in this House has opposed the housing assistance payment being transferred to the local authorities from the Department of Social Protection. Everybody has supported that. What the Deputy alleges is wrong. I suspect that after him being involved in the debate and having welcomed the Bill on Second Stage, the bevy of advisers got at him and they then started to construct mischievous amendments. He knows people who will be in receipt of the housing assistance payment will not lose their priority in terms of alternative-----

They will.

They will not.

Sorry, would you mind-----

Would you allow the Minister to-----

Deputies, would please allow the Minister his time? Deputy O'Brien can come back in. He has a minute to reply. Would Deputy Shortall-----

I do not think Deputy Shortall should enter this. Her decision on the centralisation of medical cards has caused enough difficulties in this country.

Deputy O'Brien is right that it is the most fundamental reform for a generation - a reform for which this House has argued for the past number of years. I am sorry it has taken as long as it has to give effect to it. I know there are different provisions in different local authorities but it is a real measure to assist people who are in receipt of this housing supplement to go back to work if they can do that and retain the housing supplement. That is a major advance on where we were. People will not lose their access to social housing in the normal way.

I can assure the Minister a bevy of advisers did not get a hold of me. It is quite clear that a bevy of Fine Gaelers got a hold of the Minister, along with his colleagues in Cabinet who represent the Labour Party, and stripped them of every principle and moral they had.

Would you put your supplementary question, please?

At a recent committee meeting, officials from the Department stated that people would be removed from council housing lists and would be put on a transfer list. Some councils do not even operate a transfer list. In the case of some of the councils which operate a transfer list, one is only entitled to a transfer on medical grounds, so it is not true to say-----

That is not true.

It is true.

Many of us have sat on councils which-----

The Deputy needs to get his local councillors to change that.

-----have transfer lists.

There is no doubt that this is the most profound change in housing policy.

It is a positive change.

It is not a positive change, as Deputy Stagg might like to spin it. This will condemn people-----

Scaremongering.

-----who have no choice but to accept a housing assistance payment. They will be taken off a council housing list and will be left at the mercy of private landlords and the private market. It is an absolute disgrace.

I still encourage the Minister of State, Deputy Jan O'Sullivan, and her Labour Party colleagues, to finally stand up-----

Sorry, would you please-----

Scaremongering.

I call on the Minister to respond. Would you please stop shouting across the Chamber?

There was not one Labour Party-----

That applies to you, Deputy Coppinger. I know you are a new Deputy but there are standards in the Chamber. You are not in the county council now.

There is no basis in the legislation being passed for the charges being made by Deputy O'Brien.

There is.

Frankly, I am surprised-----

Hold on a minute. Allow the Minister to respond to the allegations.

Frankly, I am surprised that people who argued for the change that has been brought in by the Minister of State, Deputy Jan O'Sullivan, now want to scaremonger against it. I am especially surprised that it is coming from the normally mild-mannered Deputy O'Brien who does not customarily go in for the prima donna performances given from those benches.

The Minister would know all about prima donnas.

Minister, I am going to move on because nobody is interested in listening to the reply. I call Deputy Maureen O'Sullivan.

It is a very good reform and we should agree to welcome it.