Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The best part of €500 million is spent each year on these two supports. If it was any other portion of public procurement, senior public procurement experts would manage that €500 million. Instead, the policy allows for thousands of people without any public procurement knowledge spending public money in a market where it inevitably has an inflationary impact. Does Ms Mason accept that having, in some cases, very vulnerable people procuring the service on an individual basis is an inevitable way to get poor value for money, compared to if the State procured it in a more co-ordinated way?

I saw a figure in, I think, 2014 or 2015 that €8 million was being spent on the rent supplement scheme in my area, Finglas. That could not have been getting good value for money because thousands of people were procuring that service. It is not a good way of spending public money.