Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)

The purpose of rent supplement is to provide short-term income support to eligible tenants 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. Since 2005 rent supplement expenditure has increased from €369 million to €516 million in 2010. The number of persons on rent supplement has increased from almost 60,200 persons in 2005 to more than 96,100 as at 18 November 2011, a 60% increase.

Responsibility for setting and enforcing housing standards rests with the local authorities. However, accommodation occupied by rent supplement tenants should at least meet minimum housing standards. In consultation with the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government, section 25 of the Social Welfare and Pensions Act 2007 introduced the condition that allows the Department to decide that a rent supplement may not be payable where it has been notified by a housing authority of non-compliance with standards.

Where such a notification is received from a housing authority in respect of an existing tenant the Department would normally discuss the situation with the tenant and take whatever action it decides is necessary in the best interests of the tenant. This condition is aimed at improving the standards of accommodation which rent supplement tenants occupy and supports the local authority in meeting its responsibilities on housing standards.

The Department must be satisfied that accommodation funded under the rent supplement scheme is reasonably suited to the residential and other needs of the claimant. Where the Department's representatives become aware of accommodation or blocks of accommodation which appear to them to be sub-standard, they notify the respective local authority and it may advise prospective tenants that rent supplement will not be paid in respect of those tenancies. In addition, my Department shares information with a range of other Departments and bodies with a view to improving the regulation of the private rented market.

My Department provides details of long-term rent supplement tenancies to local authorities via the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government on a quarterly basis and this information assists in enforcing housing standards. In addition, details of new rent supplemented tenancies are given to the Private Residential Tenancies Board, PRTB, to ensure that those tenancies are registered by landlords. The Deputy will be aware that it is the revenue generated from PRTB registration which supports the inspection of accommodation.

The basic problem is that people who are living on rent supplement in the long term ought to be doing so directly via the local authority in the area where they are living. Rent supplement was only ever designed to be short term for people in rented accommodation who had suddenly lost their jobs and were looking forward to getting another job quickly. The rent supplement was to tide them over for a short period of unemployment.

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