Ms Helen Faughnan:

We can provide an information note for the committee just to clarify, because the committee is absolutely a great source of communication with the public. We are currently working on preparing extra guidance for our community welfare service staff on rent deposits. At the same time, we will send a note to the committee on this.

Exceptional needs payments are means-tested. As I said, circumstances change, but somebody coming in who absolutely must have the money available to him or her should be able to receive support. Again, if committee members are aware of cases, they should highlight them with the Department.

On landlords and under-the-table payments, I want to clarify that we are not looking to clear up a retrospective situation. If someone has been paying an under-the-counter top-up for the last 12 months and they want to regularise the situation, we are not asking the landlord to come forward and say so. If they come in and verify that this is the current rent payable under the lease, we can look at the circumstances. Issues relating to revenue are matters for the landlord and the Revenue Commissioners. We will wait and see how this issue resolves itself. As Deputy Curran said, we will and we do keep this under constant review. Our staff on the ground highlight issues to us if they are of particular concern. At different times there are different pinch points in the market.

On market rents for Dublin, with the difference between the Fingal and non-Fingal areas, as I said, community welfare service staff working in the various areas have a lot of information. Whether they are operating in Dublin 15, Dublin 7, Dublin 3, the south side or whatever it is, they have a good idea of what the market rents in the area are, but also what the agreed rents come up as. In the Department we have access to the Residential Tenancies Board database, which records the actual agreed rents, which oftentimes do not quite reflect the asking rents put up on some property registers.

On the exceptional needs payment, if a debt has been accrued, anybody who is in debt should come in and talk to us. We are not saying that we will fully clear the debt, but we could work with the person, particularly if bills are mounting up, such as electricity or gas bills, because they have had difficulties with their rent. We would recommend that the person talk to the Money Advice and Budgeting Service and work with it to try to regularise the situation, but we would see whether we could help them in some way. I also note that a new micro-credit scheme is available through the credit unions. That is another source of support. Again, we recommend that people come in and talk to us and we can see how we can work best with them.