Ms Helen Faughnan:

Prior to attending the meeting, we checked around the country to see if all the documentation is received and completed, whether rent supplements are processed fairly quickly and definitely within two to five days. A rent supplement form is not straightforward. There are many elements to it because we need the household or family details, including whether there are children in the house, the income details of the claimant and his or her spouse or partner, savings, third party details, the details of the property being rented, details of the landlord, including his or her tax reference number, and a housing needs assessment, and we need to know whether the person meets the habitual residence condition. By its nature, it is a detailed process but if all the elements are there, the decisions are made quickly. The issue is when some of the elements are missing and it is up to the client to come back with them. To try to assist in the processing of all of this, there used to be a rent pack. Having taken feedback from customers and NGOs, last August, a new rent supplement application form was produced. It is much more streamlined and there is a tick box to remind customers, employers and landlords of the different elements they have to complete. As a result of that form, the number of incomplete application forms has dropped. We are getting the completed application forms in and that is helping the processing times.

With regard to discretion, I assure the committee that the people processing rent supplement claims are former community welfare officers. The discretion remains and they have a huge amount of local knowledge. While we have rent limits, in some areas the rent paid might be less because the officials are aware in the area that accommodation is available at less than the rent limit amount. If somebody has a disability in the household or there is a specific case of concern, there is a small amount of discretion.

I refer to rent supplement and landlords. If the tenant comes to us and says he or she wants the payment made directly to the landlord, we will facilitate that. Approximately 20% of rent supplement payments are paid currently to a person other than the tenant. In some cases, a person acts on behalf of the tenant but the rent supplement scheme is designed specifically for the benefit of tenants to assist them with short-term accommodation needs. If we were to start paying landlords directly, this would create a new relationship between them and the Department. Currently, that would mean up to 86,000 additional clients and that is not on the cards for us but under the housing assistance payment, HAP about which Deputy Ó Snodaigh asked, it is planned that the payment will issue directly to the landlords because currently under the rental accommodation scheme, that is what happens. However, the rent supplement scheme is designed to be short term. When landlords have grievances about non-payment of rent, etc., by a tenant, there are specific measures in place through the dispute resolution process of the PRTB if they wish to go through that.

I will update the committee on HAP. The Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government is taking the lead in the development of the payment with significant interaction with our Department. Detailed legislation will be required on the housing side to bring in HAP and the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government is working on that. In tandem with that, its officials are carrying out a detailed economic assessment of this proposal and they are also examining the business planning process behind this because this will be a fundamental change in how housing supports are administered. There is also a major concern among local authorities. Many of their tenants have fallen into rent arrears and there is a concern that the proposed set up under HAP should not make this situation worse.

I referred in my opening contribution to the household budgeting facility. This scheme is operated by An Post on behalf of my Department. It is an excellent scheme, which helps people, particularly those on low incomes, to manage their budget more effectively. They can pay their gas and electricity bills and so on out of that. Currently, 33,000 local authority tenants are paying their rents under the household budgeting system. Part of the difficulty was when they signed up to a tenancy agreement with a local authority and household budgeting, they were able to unsign a week or two later. We introduced a provision in last December's Social Welfare Bill to make it mandatory that when a tenant signs up to the household budgeting facility under the new tenancy agreements, he or she cannot unsign without the agreement of the local authority. We hope to have this new facility by the end of next month and that will be a help to the local authorities.

The pilot schemes will commence once the necessary housing legislation is in place. The Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government is working with the local authorities to select the pilot locations. I do not have the details to hand but they will become available once the Department publishes the housing Bill. It is not clear how long the pilot schemes will be. That element has not been worked out yet but as part of the business processing, we will test the various elements to ensure the interaction between the local authorities, our Department, the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government and whatever housing agencies make this new process work. We will tease out any of the issues that might arise before full roll-out commences.