Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

I propose to answer Questions Nos. 60 and 61 together.

Rent supplement is payable to people who are unable to meet the cost of renting private accommodation and is intended as a short-term support. There are currently more than 91,600 people in receipt of rent supplement, an increase of almost 24% since the end of December 2008. It is essential to ensure that State support for rent supplemented tenants, who form a substantial section of the rental market, does not give rise to inflated rental prices with particular negative impact on those tenants on lower incomes, including people in low paid employment. It is also important to ensure that taxpayers' money is not being used to pay excessive prices to landlords.

To that end, the April budget provided for new maximum rent limits with effect from 1 June 2009 to reflect the general reductions in private sector rent levels. In order to bring the minimum contribution towards rent and mortgage interest supplement in line with payments required of local authority tenants, it was increased by €6, to €24 per week. Payments to existing rent supplement tenants were also reduced by 8% with effect from 1 June 2009.

The supplementary budget also provided for new arrangements for applications for rent supplement. To qualify for rent supplement, a person must now have been residing in private rented accommodation or accommodation for homeless persons for a period of 183 days within the preceding 12 months of the date of claim for rent supplement. A person may also qualify for rent supplement where the person is deemed by a housing authority to be eligible for and in need of social housing support.

The aim of this restriction on entitlement to rent supplement is to ensure that housing authorities remain the principal agents both for assessing housing need and for meeting the long-term housing needs of people. Community welfare officers have discretion to provide assistance where exceptional circumstances exist in any individual case.

My Department continues to work closely with the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government in ensuring that rental accommodation scheme, RAS, meets its objective of catering for those on long-term rent supplementation while enabling rent supplement to return to its original role of a short-term income support. Trends in the private rental market are monitored on an ongoing basis and maximum rent limits will be reviewed in the light of a continuing drop in rental prices in recent months.

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