Ms Helen Faughnan:

We are aware that there are particular issues in the Dublin area, mainly because of availability. I am aware from the Daft report published in the first quarter of the year that Dublin rents have increased 5% year on year. The increase is almost 6% in the Dublin city centre area. There are availability issues as the number of properties available for rent has fallen sharply. Fewer than 2,000 properties are available to rent in April, which was the lowest number of any period in the last eight years. We have a particular problem in Dublin which we will have to address as part of our rent limit review. We are conscious of that.

Mention was made of the centralised rent units. We are aware that there have been issues in relation to the administration of those rents. They were particularly based in the Dublin area and were established to meet a particular need and problem. On the transfer of the community welfare service into the Department, 27 temporary CWOs were lost and the number of claims increased substantially by approximately 62%. It is not ideal and we are looking at the mechanisms around how we process rent claims. The majority of claims are processed in small hubs where a person seeking rent supplement can come in and hand in an application which can be checked to ensure all necessary documentation is being provided. The person can also receive any necessary support in terms of processing a claim.