Mr. Cathal Morgan:

The tenancy protection service started in June 2014. That is an initiative whereby Threshold works with us and the Department of Social Protection to assist vulnerable tenants in receipt of rent supplement who may lose their tenancies as a result of income inadequacy. Since June 2014, it has had 7,500 direct contacts from tenants in the private rental sector. Out of those 7,500 Threshold - not us - has deemed that approximately 3,700 were at immediate risk of losing their tenancies. Within that number since this scheme began, 1,600 have had the uplifts. It is important and this is why I am raising this. Only 22 households out of the 7,500 came into homeless services.

As Threshold would probably confirm, we think that we probably need to do more awareness raising because it can be too late by the time the tenants reach us. Quite often there is a receivership problem. Often there is a legal reason that allows the tenancy to be relinquished, unfortunately. There is nothing that can be done and we have to move in with an emergency intervention.

The Department of Social Protection would have to answer for itself regarding the operation of the scheme generally. However, within our own structures it has emphasised that it carries out regular mailshots to make contact with those in receipt of rent supplement.

This is to try to make people aware that, if they are in trouble, they should come to us at the earliest opportunity.

The Deputy asked about flexibility around accessing hotel accommodation, where it is assessed by the local authority that there is no other alternative. While that flexibility exists, I would make the following point. Literally every day we have scenarios where we might contact a hotel and it says it does not want to do business with us because it is full, yet a household might make contact themselves and get through, and vice versa. The committee should keep in mind that we have 790 families in emergency situations, of which 580 are in commercial hotel settings. We are not hiding behind the door here. We make the point all the time that this is not sustainable, which is why we have to look at fast-track building to get away from that. This is just not sustainable for families and there will be a reckoning down the line in terms of the impact on children and families. In particular, we know that children are massively discommoded. We try to work on a case-by-case basis when this is brought to our attention, but the sheer scale and volume of what is coming at us make it extremely difficult. I am not making excuses. Of course mistakes are made and we will admit them when they are made, and if we can resolve the issue, we will try resolve it. However, to answer the question directly, if it is brought to our attention that there is a situation where it is said, "This is too far for us, we need to make a change", we will do as much as we can to try to facilitate the family.