Deputy Molloy to ask the final question.

Would the Minister clarify the exact position in regard to unemployed people who are in arrears with mortgage repayments? Have they an entitlement to welfare payments from the health boards to assist them in paying off arrears on their mortgages? Quite a large number of people have been forced to sell their houses because they have been unable to meet mortgage repayments following unexpected unemployment. Unemployment is escalating and this is a major problem throughout the country.

By and large the health boards do not pay the ordinary mortgage payments but where, for example, there is a freezing of a mortgage and an agreement is reached between a building society and an individual client, a proportion of the interest payments may be paid by the health board in order to ensure that the family are not evicted and have some opportunity of getting employment subsequently. Payments towards the interest on a mortgage as distinct from payment of any capital portion have been and are being paid by health boards. The situation is most acute in the Eastern Health Board area because half of all supplementary welfare payments are now being paid in that area where one-third of the population live. It is an interesting aspect of social research that the lack of income is more integrated in the Eastern Health Board area than has been popularly assumed. There is a lot of conventional wisdom about income distribution which I would like to explode if I had the opportunity of so doing.

It is very interesting to know that the Minister for Social Welfare can regard this sort of situation as something of statistical interest.

It is tragic.