Mr. Eamon O'Flaherty:

In our office, and in other offices in our area, we have people who come in every day who are on the HAP scheme. They come in with excellent references and one can say to the landlord "Look, here are people on the HAP scheme and here are people who are working." Both want to rent for a period and we give all the details. It is about education of landlords - they need to be educated more about the benefits of the HAP scheme. When they hear about the scheme, they say the tenants come from X or Y location, from other social areas, from wherever and refer to the issues relating to that.

Landlords should be made more aware of it. I strongly recommend that all local newspapers and so on carry more on it and that their websites and those of local authorities be up to date. The benefits of the schemes should be highlighted. Our offices have let to many people on the HAP scheme and we never have any real issue with them. No matter from where people come, there will always be issues with some tenants, but for the vast majority of agents, as long as references and such are tidied up and everyone is happy enough from that point of view, there really is no issue in renting to people on the HAP scheme. The main thing is to communicate the benefits of the scheme to landlords. However, this goes back to the current lack of supply. If 30 people line up to view a two-bedroom apartment or a three-bedroom house, invariably only one party will get it and there will be 29 others who will be disappointed. Blaming the agent or the landlord is not the answer. Part of the solution to the problem is to have more supply to the market. That is what it is all about.