Ms Niamh O'Donoghue:

We have issued guidelines on two separate occasions to all staff involved in the community welfare service alerting them to the flexibility and encouraging them to use it, particularly in the circumstances that we have explained. One of the difficulties we face is that in some circumstances families might leave their accommodation before they tell us there is a problem or that their rent has been increased. This is part of what we are trying to alert people to with respect to the local authorities - namely, that they should have early engagement with the community welfare service so that we can at least try to get in ahead of the problem rather than having to deal with it in retrospect.

In the area the Deputy represents, there have been about 120 cases in which uplifts of rent supplement have been provided. We can give her a breakdown of those across the country.