Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

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. The overall aim is to provide short-term assistance, not to act as an alternative to the other social housing schemes operated by the Exchequer. There are currently almost 93,200 tenants benefiting from a rent supplement payment, an increase of 55% since the end of 2005. More than half of these are in receipt of payment for more than one year, while more than 33,000 have been receiving payments for 18 months or more.

The rental accommodation scheme, RAS, which was introduced in 2004, gives local authorities specific responsibility for meeting the longer-term housing needs of those in receipt of rent supplement for 18 months or more. Details of these cases are notified regularly by the Department to local authorities. Local authorities meet the housing needs of these individuals through a range of approaches including the traditional range of social housing options, the voluntary housing sector and, in particular, the RAS. Latest figures from the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government indicate that to date, more than 24,800 transfers from rent supplement have occurred. Since 2005 local authorities have transferred more than 13,400 rent supplement cases to the RAS, while housing authorities have transferred a further 11,413 recipients to other social housing options.

It is accepted that progress in regard to RAS was initially slower than expected. However, the pace of delivery has improved significantly. In total, 14,000 recipients were transferred in 2008 and 2009, achieving the targets set for RAS transfers for these years. The target established for 2010 is 8,000. In addition to this official target, due to the numbers of unsold affordable stock throughout the State, an opportunity has arisen to make use of some of these properties for RAS and it is expected that additional transfers may be possible in 2010.

The Department continues to work closely with the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government in ensuring 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. The Department provides regular reports to the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government and regular meetings are conducted with the RAS programme managers of the various local authorities.

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