Dr. Robert Sweeney:

I mentioned in my presentation that the thresholds, the rent limits, have not been changed. As to who sets them, I understand it is the Government but I am not clear on whether that is the Government in conjunction with local authorities. As I said, the thresholds have not been changed since the most recent round that was introduced in 2017, based on the second quarter of 2016. Rents have obviously increased a lot since then. I referenced the fact that many households are now topping up their HAP to private landlords. For instance, Threshold did a survey in conjunction with the Society of St. Vincent de Paul in 2019 and found that 48% of HAP tenants are paying top-ups to their landlords. Under the HAP scheme, local authorities allow tenants to pay top-ups to their private landlords but, in general, that is not supposed to be in excess of 30% of their net income, so their total housing expense should not be more than 30% of their net income. The Threshold survey found 20% of people who are paying top-ups were paying more than 30% of their income. There appears to be an issue there in terms of the thresholds not keeping pace with rising rent expenses.

Figures from the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform showed only 28% of tenants are paying top-ups. Let us say that between 28% and 48% of tenants are paying top-ups. I agree with Deputy that there are affordability issues for people on the HAP scheme despite the fact there has been an increase in funding for HAP in recent years. The funding is in line with the projections made by Rebuilding Ireland but I take the Deputy's point that it is not sufficient for many households.