Ms Áine Stapleton:

As referred to by the Comptroller and Auditor General earlier, the Department does not collect specific information on the top-up payments. We are very aware that it is a very volatile market at the moment and there are a lot of pressures on HAP tenancies. Under Housing for All, one of the actions that we are committed to is a review of the discretionary levels, that is, the 20% discretionary level to which the Secretary General referred. That review was carried out for the Department by the Housing Agency. We received a report before Christmas. We are working with the authors of that report to clarify some of the data sets and we hope to be in a position to put recommendations to the Minister shortly on foot of that report. Our initial focus will be on that element of the discretionary levels and whether we need more flexibility there, particularly for single people where we know there are challenges.