Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for raising the issue. The purpose of the rent supplement scheme is to provide short-term income support for 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 approximately 77,000 rent supplement recipients, for whom the Government has provided a sum of €344 million in 2014.

Section 25 of the Social Welfare and Pensions Act 2007 provides that a payment of rent supplement shall not be payable in respect of accommodation which is situated in an area notified to the Minister for Social Protection by the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government as being an area of regeneration for the purpose of providing for greater social integration. In some ways, much of what the Deputy raises should be addressed to the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, Deputy Phil Hogan.

The Minister advised in 2008 that, on the advice of Dublin City Council, the Ballymun area merited designation as an area of regeneration for the purposes of section 25 of the Social Welfare and Pensions Act 2007. Accordingly, with effect from 27 November 2008, rent supplement is not paid in respect of accommodation situated in the Ballymun regeneration area as set out by the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government. It was supported by the public representatives and the local authority. We are responding to a request from the local authority to the Minister.

The reasons behind the provision is to support Government investment in regeneration and to attain a good social mix between private, social, affordable and voluntary housing so that we do not have an area dominated by one kind of housing such as social housing and we get a good mix of people. The people of the area lobbied for the restriction on rent supplement in the Ballymun area and it was introduced with their agreement. The measures provided for in section 25 are not a blanket refusal of rent supplement in areas of regeneration. Specific provision is made to ensure people already residing in such areas and in receipt of rent supplement may continue to receive payment, and people already residing in the area who may have recourse to rent supplement in the future will not have their entitlement restricted. There are currently 180 recipients of rent supplement in the Ballymun area. It is not a total ban.

The ongoing designation of Ballymun as an area of regeneration is a matter for my colleague, the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government. I am advised that while the physical regeneration element of the Ballymun project will be completed this year, the social regeneration programmes will continue beyond that date. Current considerations regarding tenure mix will continue and, for that reason, we have not proposed to change it. I have been in Ballymun with the Deputy on a number of occasions. If we receive advice from Deputies and the housing unit at Dublin City Council makes representations, we will be prepared to examine the matter in a way that best contributes to the continuing regeneration, given the efforts of people in Ballymun and of the regeneration agency, in ways that are supportive of it.

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