Social Protection: Actions to Alleviate the Rent Support Burden 10th July 2013

Question No: 343 Ref No: 33529-13

To the Minister for Social Protection

To ask the Minister for Social Protection the degree to which she and her Department have entered into negotiations with other relevant Government Departments with a view to transferring the responsibility for local authority housing thus alleviating the burden of rent support on her Department and facilitating local authority housing applicants in their efforts to obtain employment which they cannot do without loss of income under the system of rent support; and if she will make a statement on the matter.
– Bernard J. Durkan.

*       For WRITTEN answer on Tuesday, 9th July, 2013.

R E P L Y

Minister for Social Protection (Joan Burton T.D):
The purpose of the rent supplement scheme is to provide short-term support to eligible people living in private rented accommodation whose means are insufficient to meet their accommodation costs and who do not have accommodation available to them from any other source.   There are approximately 84,000 rent supplement recipients of which over 53,000 are in receipt for over 18 months. The Government has provided over €403 million for the scheme in 2013.    
In 2012, the Government approved in principle to transfer responsibility for the provision of rental assistance to persons with a long-term housing need from this Department to housing authorities using a new Housing Assistance Payment (HAP). Officials in this Department are working closely with those in the Department of Environment, Community and Local Government (DECLG) to assist with the necessary work required to progress HAP in terms of enabling the priority drafting of the required legislation, initiating the business planning process, examining the possibilities for providing for direct deduction from social welfare payments – including an amendment to the household budgeting facility, completing the economic assessment and initiating piloting of HAP.
DECLG have recently commenced a Business Processing Development exercise to determine the business processes required to support the implementation of HAP and ensure its successful roll out.   Officials from this Department are fully engaged in this process.