Seán Fleming (Laois, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I would like Mr. McCarthy to clarify one point on HAP. I would like a detailed note on this. HAP is substantially a transfer of people from rent supplement. The 13,000 are not new people and they are not in new houses. When the rent supplement payments were being moved from the Department of Social Protection to the local authorities, county by county, landlords increased the rent for a person in receipt of rent supplement and that was deemed a new application by the Department of Social Protection because it had to reassess the situation. The Department handed that over to the local authority under HAP. Many of the people who went onto HAP are the same who received rent supplement remaining in the same houses but because the rent increased, it was recategorised as HAP. Is Mr. McCarthy with me on this?