Mr. Rónán Hession:

To some extent, some of the discretion is at local authority level rather than centrally with that Department, and that is part of the complication. This issue has also come up concerning carers as well. We had it at our annual carers forum regarding how the disregard applies to the carer support grant. There is a level of dissonance across the means testing. It is something we need to think about, whether this is across social welfare, SUSI, medical cards or HAP. There are sometimes policy reasons for the difference and sometimes it has been just an evolution over time and the orchestra is not tuned. We have raised this issue at official level and it is something I also know the Minister has written on. It is on the radar of the Department of housing. We have discussed it and I think it is trying to engage with it. In some of the HAP situations, it is a question of there being a cost to the local authorities. It is their call rather than the Department's and it is about navigating that aspect.