Ms Helen Faughnan:

Deputy Harty raised the issue of rent deposits. This depends on the individual circumstances of the case. In Dublin the Dublin Regional Homeless Executive is working through the non-governmental organisations. Those are the advocates paid by the State such as Focus Ireland and so on. They have contracts with the Dublin Regional Homeless Executive to source and support people trying to access accommodation. That mechanism is working very easily in terms of putting the rent deposit and the rent in place in advance in particular cases of need together with a pool of supports around the client. I would not have knowledge of how easy it is to do that in various parts of the country. We will ask our community welfare staff to support people as much as possible if that is an issue. Deputy Funchion spoke about this also and I will take that matter up with my divisional managers to encourage them in terms of the engagement with our clients to try to make the mechanism as easy as possible. If the Deputy has particular instances she could bring to my attention, I would appreciate that.