Mr. Niall Egan:

I am the assistant secretary general with responsibility for corporate affairs including the finance function in the Department of Social Protection. I am joined by Alan Flynn, principal officer with responsibility for budget and estimates, and Saidhbhin Hardiman, principal officer in the Department recently working on the Department’s means review. I thank the committee for the opportunity to attend to discuss the recent changes to means assessment in respect of rental of a room in a person’s home.

In July 2022, in order to remove barriers in the housing market, the Minister for Social Protection exercised her statutory powers under the Social Welfare Consolidation Act and, with the consent of the Minister for Public Expenditure, NDP Delivery and Reform, made two regulations namely SI 396/2022 and SI 397/2022. These provide for a disregard of up to €14,000 annually for recipients of social assistance schemes who rented out a room in their own homes. These regulations were subsequently extended until March 2025 with a sunset clause in effect at that date. The regulations specifically limited the scope of the disregard to those renting out a room in their own home.

In April of last year, the Government decided, in a response to a Housing for All strategy, to take further measures across the full breadth of policy areas to support the Irish housing, and in particular, the rental market. Two areas of policy reform, in particular, link into the recent change in social welfare regulations. In recent months, the Minister for housing has progressed mechanisms to support rental of local authority properties in certain circumstances. With effect from December last, local authority tenants can rent a room to students under the rent a room to a student scheme. This change, implemented on an administrative basis initially, will allow the Department of housing to monitor the impact and take-up of the scheme. At the same time, the Department of Health has been considering making modifications to the financial assessment process associated with the nursing home support scheme, NHSS, known as the fair deal scheme. Rental income from a person’s home has always formed part of the financial assessment process for the fair deal scheme. The percentage of rent assessable has been reduced in phases in recent years and following a review by the Minister for Health and with effect from February this year, the percentage assessable has been reduced to zero, thus removing a barrier to availing of the fair deal scheme.

The Minister wanted to ensure that social welfare regulations were in line with Government policy in this regard. Since its introduction, the Department’s rent a room disregard has provided a small but positive support to the rental market, removing barriers to facilitate a total of 650 such means assessments linked to claims since the introduction of the disregard, with 250 currently in payment. Following consideration of the policy changes across the Government, the Minister decided to implement a twofold extension of the scope of the existing disregard. First, the requirement was removed for the home to be owned in the circumstance where the Department of Social Protection customer is a local authority tenant, who is providing accommodation under the room for a student scheme. Second, the requirement was removed for the home to be personally used and enjoyed where the person has moved into nursing home accommodation provided under the fair deal scheme.

Take-up of the disregard will be monitored over the coming months as both wider Government policy and the Irish rental market evolves in the medium term. Associated guidelines for non-statutory schemes have been modified in line with these statutory changes. The Department of Social Protection disregard is still subject to a sunset clause, which will expire in March 2025, so the Department can continue to monitor uptake and assess any other effects of the change with that safety net in place.

Relevant briefings took place with officials in the Department of Public Expenditure, NDP Delivery and Reform. Members will note from the regulations, that both Ministers signed the regulations to come into effect on 30 January 2024. Members will be aware that regulations are always shared with this Oireachtas joint committee immediately after they have been signed into law.

To conclude, my colleagues and I look forward to hearing the committee’s views on the regulations and we are happy to assist with any questions members of the committee may have.