Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I propose to take Questions Nos. 61 and 115 together.

The purpose of the rent supplement scheme is to provide short-term support for eligible persons 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. There are approximately 84,000 rent supplement recipients, of whom more than 53,000 have been in receipt of the supplement for more than 18 months. The Government has provided more than €403 million for the scheme in 2013.

In 2012 the Government approved in principle to transfer responsibility for the provision of rent assistance for persons with a long-term housing need, namely, for more than 18 months, from the Department to housing and local authorities under a new scheme, the housing assistance payment, HAP. Officials in the Department are working closely with the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government to assist with the necessary work required to introduce the new scheme in terms of enabling the priority drafting of the required legislation, initiating the business planning process, including dealing with all of the IT changes required, examining the possibilities for providing for direct deduction from social welfare payments, including an amendement to the household budgeting facility, completing the economic assessment and initiating the piloting of the HAP scheme.

The Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government has recently commenced a business processing development exercise to determine the business processes and officials from the Department of Social Protection are fully engaged in this process. The outcome of the initial exercise will provide an indication of the requirements and resources required for the implementation of the HAP scheme for both the Department and the housing authorities.

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