Jennifer Murnane O'Connor (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I want to make a clarification. I am aware of the great work Threshold does. It is not easy, particularly when dealing with people who will become homeless. Carlow is my area and we are a big IT town. We have St. Patrick's, Carlow College and the Institute of Technology, Carlow so we are very lucky. We find that sometimes landlords will not accept certain tenants into rented accommodation. There is a new HAP scheme which landlords are inclined to refuse. We are getting to a stage where we have people becoming homeless because the landlords will not accept recipients of HAP or because the rent is too high to qualify for the HAP scheme. Is that an issue? One has to be on the local authority housing list to qualify for the new HAP scheme. We used to have what was called the midlands rent unit or Dublin rent unit. One did not have to be on the local authority housing list to qualify for rent allowance. There is an issue that when one is on the HAP scheme, one is also on the local authority housing list. What is the story with the midlands rent unit and other units around the country? Will the Department leave them there?