Ms Niamh O'Donoghue:

There are two different types of top-up payments. The basic idea of rent supplement and rent supplement being payable is to ensure that somebody has sufficient money to keep him or herself at a basic standard of living in which case he or she will qualify for rent supplement. It may well be that somebody, who is potentially in receipt of rent supplement, has some other income through means, some sort of rehabilitative employment or whatever. I shall comment on situations where a person has additional income above the rate of supplementary welfare allowance. In such instances it may very well be that the scheme allows him or her to top-up his or her rent to secure accommodation that is at a higher rent level than would normally be given under the rent supplement scheme.

In other circumstances if a landlord contracts, under the rent supplement scheme, to provide something or a tenant asks a landlord to provide accommodation at a particular rent but that rent is under declared, in terms of what the landlord is seeking, then that is an offence and should be reported to the Department. There is specific legislation to take account of it and our inspectors have received additional powers in recent social welfare legislation to deal with such landlords.