Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

It is important to reiterate that the details of all new rent supplement tenancies are electronically forwarded to the Residential Tenancies Board to enable it to ensure landlords are meeting all their obligations. Given the number of tenants in receipt of rent supplement — there are 50,000 new recipients this year — substantial work is being done in this area. Of assistance in this regard is the new requirement in the budget that a person holding additional accommodation, be it a holiday home or rented house, pay €200 to a local authority. Landlords will be caught under this provision also. There are in place many mechanisms through which we can obtain this information. It is important landlords are tax compliant and the provision of this information will ensure we can follow up those who are not.

Deputy Wall spoke of people who are unable to pay deposits. The community welfare officer has discretion to give deposits. So far this year, 10,500 payments at a cost of €6.2 million were made to people to enable them to put down a deposit on accommodation. Perhaps what the Deputy outlined is just happening in a particular area. We will keep this under review in the scheme over the next year or so.

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