Dr. Tom Boland:

By the time we get to the end of the conversation on HAP, which replaced rent allowance, a lot of the narrative is about how things are very bad in the North compared with the South. We point towards the NHS but it is not quite what it used to be. The very existence and scale of HAP in the South indicates how much we rely on the private landlord sector to provide. It is a sort of supplement or quasi-social housing. Of course, housing is very complicated and is frequently discussed within Leinster House, but we really need to build social housing rather than to supplement rent. That is something we need to move towards. This is the infrastructural side of a good welfare state. We talked about Denmark but all around Europe, there is much more investment in the infrastructure of the welfare state, such as education, housing and health. That is something we also need to give attention to, as well as the actual generosity of the payments.