Ms Louise Bayliss:

That is a good point. It is great that the CSO SILC data is capturing the before and after housing costs, but what we see - it is contrary to what one would imagine - is that people who are in receipt of HAP and getting support for their housing are the ones who are at most risk of poverty because of the excessive top-ups to landlords. With a few other organisations, we have asked for some type of payment to bridge that gap so that people would not fall below a certain income threshold. There is legislation around that, such that people can only pay a certain amount back to social welfare and their supplementary level does not go, but it excludes housing, which does not make sense when it is such a core payment.

I know of a woman in Cork who is paying €700 per month towards her housing, and she is on social welfare. She is absolutely living way below the poverty line. The HAP base rates have not increased since 2016 or whenever. It has been a long time and below market rates, and it is not catching up. People on social welfare or low incomes are bearing that cost. Many people are falling into rent arrears and ending up in homelessness because we are not providing that support. We have this increase where we are paying them €2,000 per week to house them in a homeless hub instead of giving them the money to support them to stay in their homes.