John Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)

I thank Deputy Durkan for raising this issue and apologise for the absence of the Minister. The rent supplement scheme is administered on the Minister's behalf by the community welfare division of the Health Service Executive. The Department of Social and Family Affairs has no role in determining entitlement in individual cases.

A number of measures were introduced in the rent supplement scheme in January 2004 to re-focus the scheme on its original objective, which is the provision of short-term income support as opposed to long-term housing solutions. A working group was subsequently established under the Sustaining Progress agreement to facilitate engagement with the social partners in monitoring the impact of the changes to the scheme. In its report in August 2004, the group concluded that the new measures were not having any significant adverse impact having regard to the design of the measures, including the operation of the levels of discretion by community welfare officers. As part of the ongoing monitoring of the rent supplement scheme, the working group was reconvened last November to undertake further examination and consideration. I understand the group is in the process of drafting a report on its latest deliberations.

In the meantime, based on the work of the social partners and other consultations, the Minister introduced new regulations on 31 January 2005 to make two significant changes in the conditions for receipt of rent supplement. First, the requirement regarding six months of prior renting was abolished to ensure that bona fide tenants may access rent supplement in appropriate circumstances. Rent supplement may now be paid where applicants have been established in rented accommodation from within their own resources but can no longer meet the payments because of a change in circumstances, such as illness or redundancy. In addition, rent supplement continues to be payable where there is an assessed housing need and the applicant is unable to meet this from his or her own resources and also in other specific circumstances.

Second, the rules relating to the refusal of local authority accommodation have been eased. Up to now, rent supplement was not payable where a person refused, within a 12-month period, a second offer of local authority accommodation. Rent supplement may now be paid unless a person has refused, within an 18-month period, three offers of accommodation from a local authority.

In regard to the four cases raised by Deputy Durkan, none of the four was affected by the measures introduced in January 2005.

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