Ms Niamh O'Donoghue:

The primary focus of the Department is in providing an income support to people with a housing need on a short-term basis. The regulation of housing and oversight of housing provision is a matter for the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government. If there are concerns about the offerings, we work very closely with officers in the community welfare service and local authorities in order to determine where there are problems and how they can be addressed. Equally, we have very close working relationships with the Private Residential Tenancies Board, and there is much exchange of data. Our primary role is absolutely to be the paymaster and we do not have a responsibility for housing per se, although we work closely with other agencies in the space.