This is my first time putting a question to the Taoiseach since his appointment and I wish him the very best for the future. I raise a commitment in the programme for Government to expanding the Rebuilding Ireland home loan scheme. One issue that has arisen recently is that some people who are on the wage subsidy scheme or the pandemic unemployment payment, PUP, have had their applications stalled. I was contacted by a man in Kerry who had almost fully gone through the process but he has now been told he will have to be back at work for three months before the process can continue, even though he is already back at work. A woman told me she had a really difficult time getting qualification for the scheme because she had to jump through unimaginable hoops from the lender of last resort, the State. She had no outstanding loans, a full-time job and a part-time job, yet she still found it very difficult. Will the Taoiseach give priority to the matter, particularly where it relates to the PUP and the wage subsidy scheme?

Over the past few years in the Seanad, I raised the issue of the threshold to qualify for local authority housing lists. The Taoiseach will be aware that in almost ten years, there has been no review. I ask him to have the review carried out; every local authority in Ireland needs it.

To respond to Deputy Griffin, that issue has been raised with us and the Minister for Finance and the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform are alive to it. There are challenges in regard to the PUP and the wage subsidy scheme because the issue of the security of jobs is a consideration. As for the Rebuilding Ireland home loan scheme, I would like to think we could examine it in detail in terms of the potential of the individual to get over this hurdle in their current status, whether on the PUP or, more particularly, the wage subsidy scheme.

To respond to Deputy Murnane O'Connor, I will ask the Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government to review that. The Deputy is a long-standing campaigner on that issue and on the fact that the threshold has not changed in ten years. I will follow that up.