Mr. Paul Benson:

The percentage of Traveller households in private rented accommodation is 18%. This means 2,162 families are in receipt of support from the State to maintain those tenancies, mostly under the RAS and HAP. The Deputy is correct that there is anecdotal evidence to suggest that those tenancies are hard to sustain. Most local authorities are working on tenancy sustainment. They have tenancy sustainment officers who work with all tenants who are under pressure with their tenancy or are in danger of losing it, and they try to prevent that arising in the first instance. It does arise at times and while we do not want to see people end up in homeless services, occasionally they do. We then have to try to exit them from those homeless services. My colleague spoke earlier about how difficult a process that can be.

Sometimes the market does not provide the accommodation needed, in particular for large families. Much of the availability is three-bedroom and four-bedroom houses and sometimes the requirement is larger. That can make the process more difficult. The local authorities work as best they can, through their social workers, Traveller accommodation liaison officer and tenancy sustainment officers, to try to sustain tenancies and, when they are lost, to get alternative tenancies. It is tough market out there, as members know, with a lot of people looking for accommodation. Travellers have to compete with everyone else for tenancies, but they get as much help as possible. The HAP place-finder has been put in place, which helps with deposits and other issues. There are also protections in place under the Residential Tenancies Board which have been strengthened in recent times.