Mr. Ger Deering:

As I mentioned in my introduction, we had a workshop earlier this year with people working in the areas of housing and homelessness. It is such a big area and there are so many problems. We tried to identify one particular area where we believed we could make an intervention that would help. The area we identified was the housing assistance payment, HAP, because there are so many people now in receipt of this payment.

Whatever happens, it is going to take time to provide people with houses and long-term accommodation, but at least HAP is a measure that allows people to rent properties. People sometimes forget that HAP was originally introduced as a labour activation measure. In the older system of rent subsidy, if people were unemployed and got a job they lost their rent subsidy. This sometimes meant that it was not worth people's while taking a job, or indeed they were worse off if they went to work.

The principle of HAP is a good one. It is based on income, rather than the fact that someone has now become employed. The idea was to help people to source accommodation for themselves, and then to be able to better themselves and continue to work and pay a differential rent, based on their income.

One of the things mentioned in the workshops we did was the delays in processing a HAP application. We all know how difficult it is at present to get accommodation. If one is lucky enough to find accommodation and to come to an agreement with the landlord, one needs a very fast response with the HAP application or otherwise that property will be gone. Other difficulties were mentioned as well. Sometimes people are able to manage to pay a deposit; they might even be able to match the first month's rent, but sometimes they do not get that back, which they should.

We have identified administrative improvements that can be made in the HAP scheme. We are looking at the role of the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage in this. We are looking at the shared services organisation in Limerick that implements it and we are also looking at it from a local authority perspective. That is where we believe we can make the best and quickest intervention to bring about improvements in the housing sector.