The controversial Housing Assistance Payment (HAP) which replaces rent allowance has been defended by Minister Pat Rabbitte during heated Dáil exchanges today.

Mr Rabbitte, who was taking Opposition leaders’ questions on behalf of the Government, said the introduction of the payment was the most fundamental reform for a generation. “And it is a reform for which this House argued for the past number of years,’’ he added.

He said it was “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 supplement’’. He insisted that recipients would not lose their access to social housing in the normal way.

The Minister was replying to Sinn Féin spokesman Jonathan O’Brien who said the measure would transfer the responsibility for providing housing to the private market on a scale that had never been seen before. It would lead, he added, to people being removed from the council housing list and left to the mercy of the market.

“I do not know, Minister, if you understand the full consequences,’’ he added. It was no more, he said, than “a con-trick to reduce social housing waiting numbers’’.

The Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill, paving the way for the change, is expected to pass its final stages in the Dáil later today.