Olwyn Enright (Laois-Offaly, Fine Gael)
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Question 34: To ask the Minister for Social Protection the number of persons claiming rent supplement for more than 18 months for each of the past three years; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [28454/10]

Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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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 and not to act as an alternative to the other social housing schemes operated by the Exchequer. There are currently more than 95,500 tenants benefiting from a rent supplement payment - an increase of 60% since the end of 2007. More than 37,800 have been in payment 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 people receiving rent supplement for 18 months or more. Details of these cases are notified regularly by the Department to the 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 show that a total of 27,240 transfers from rent supplement to local authorities have occurred since 2005 - 14,833 rent supplement recipients transferred to the RAS and a further 12,407 recipients transferred to other social housing options.

It is accepted that progress in regard to the RAS was initially slower than expected. However, the pace of delivery has improved significantly. In total, 14,000 recipients were transferred to RAS and social housing in 2008 and 2009, thus, achieving the targets set for the RAS and social housing transfers for these years. The target established for 2010 is for a further 8,000 rent supplement tenants to be provided with a housing solution by local authorities.

Olwyn Enright (Laois-Offaly, Fine Gael)
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The Minister said at the beginning of his reply that the rent supplement scheme was intended to a short-term support, and it is a very necessary one. I cannot envisage a situation in the near future where rent supplement will not be needed. Given that in excess of more than one third of recipients are in receipt of it for more than 18 months, my concern is that it is not achieving what it was supposed to achieve.

The Minister is responsible for the scheme. We discussed the concept of joined-up Government thinking at a meeting yesterday and this is another example of where there is not joined-up Government thinking. The transfer rates to the RAS are less than ambitious. The initial targets in 2005 or so were more ambitious than the current targets. What discussions has the Minister had with the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government to ensure the rent budget is reduced by ensuring that the Department plays its part in ensuring people are transferred to the RAS? The figures the Minister gave for 2007 and 2008 included the RAS and social housing as distinct from the RAS alone. The RAS is popular with the public and with the people who need it but it is a major issue for people to be transferred to it.

I am sure the Minister will accept that it also beneficial in terms of eliminating poverty traps. One can be in receipt of rent supplement and then be assessed for the RAS and on being transferred to it a person can be lifted out of the poverty trap. It is only supposed to be a short-term support. What will be done to ensure that more people who have been on the list for 18 months will be transferred to the RAS?

Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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We need to do a number of things. I agree with what the Deputy said. It is not satisfactory that people are in long-term receipt of rent supplement, particularly where there are children involved. Moving from house to house and from school to school can often create great instability. I agree with the Deputy that this issue needs to be tackled.

I am sure the Deputy is interested in the figures involved. The total private and voluntary transfers to the RAS was 505 at the end of 2005, 2,333 in 2006, 2,918 in 2007, 3,645 in 2008, 3,999 at the end of 2009, and 1,433 for the current year to May. When those figures are broken down between the 30 or so local authorities, those involved do not constitute a huge number. I will discuss with my colleague the Minister of State, Deputy Finneran, how we might progress this matter. I will also meet representatives of the various groups, namely, Simon and Threshold.

As the Deputies will probably be aware since I took up this office I have been very busy. One reason I am looking forward to the plenary sessions of the Dáil ending is that much of the work that needs to be done with the Departments, officials and so on, is done when the Dáil is not in session. We have to try to get to a situation where there is a much bigger transfer of people from the temporary solution of rent supplement to a permanent solution of either social housing or the RAS. One of the attractions of the RAS is that it creates greater integration in housing rather than the social exclusion of some estates in the past.

Olwyn Enright (Laois-Offaly, Fine Gael)
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Has the Minister had discussions with the Minister of State, Deputy Finneran on this matter? The Department of Social Protection has done what it can, regardless of whether we agree with it, in terms of cuts in the rent supplement. The Minister has made it as unattractive as he possibly can and while that might not have been the intention, that is what he has done. There is some merit in some of the ways he went about doing that. His most recent decision at least took into account varying prices in different areas, which I welcome. The Minister cannot do all what is required unless the other Department plays its role. From the point of view of having cohesive Government, will we see action on this and will the Minister try to force action on the part of this ministerial colleagues in Government to ensure that this problem is tackled? It involves €0.5 billion a year out of a budget that he knows will be squeezed.

Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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The Minister of State, Deputy Finneran, is working hard on this question. Some of the issues I examined regarding the scheme in my Department were not focused on the transfer issue, which is important, but on the scheme.

The Deputy mentioned the level of rent and dealing with that issue involved a considerable amount of time. I am happy that the level of rent reflects prices in the market. Determining the right level of rent is an issue when the rent subsidy scheme is such a big player in the market. I do not want to try to price anybody out of the market but I do not want to have unnatural subsidies for landlords as well.

Many issues arise here, some directly and exclusively related to the rent subsidy scheme. I want to discuss it with the various housing groups and following that if I consider it would beneficial to have further discussions with the Minister of State, Deputy Finneran, I will do so. There is a need for joined-up Government thinking on this issue. We also have to examine issues relating to the rent subsidy scheme, having regard to the way differential rents are charged which are different from that pertaining to this scheme, to ensure that there are no disincentives to transferring.

Olwyn Enright (Laois-Offaly, Fine Gael)
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Question 35: To ask the Minister for Social Protection the reason the promised vouched fuel allowance scheme has not been developed to offset the increases for low income families at risk of fuel poverty in view of the introduction of the carbon tax on 1 May 2010; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [28455/10]

Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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The Department of Social Protection already assists low income households with heating costs through their basic payments, through the fuel allowance scheme and through the household benefits package of electricity and gas allowances. These schemes have been improved significantly in recent years. Since 2001, increases in social welfare rates, including fuel allowance, have exceeded energy product prices.

The fuel allowance is paid for 32 weeks each year from end September to end April. In the 2009-10 heating season more than 340,000 recipients benefited from the allowance at a cost of over €231 million. Some 376,000 pensioners are receiving the household benefits, which provides 2,400 electricity units per annum, or the gas equivalent, over the year and it is estimated that some 140,000 of these households are receiving both fuel allowance and the electricity units-gas allowance under the household benefits to assist with the heating and other energy requirements. The household benefit package cost €184 million in 2009.

Proper household insulation is absolutely vital in tackling fuel poverty. Initiatives such as the warmer homes scheme, operated by Sustainable Energy Ireland, under the aegis of the Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources have a very valuable role to play in that regard, as does funding from the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government to improve the quality of existing local authority housing and the housing adaptation grants for older people and people with disabilities. Considerable progress has been made in this area in recent years.

In his carbon budget statement, the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government outlined details of €130 million in funding for insulation, €76 million of which will be used to assist low income families. The Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources has overarching responsibility for the energy portfolio and has convened an interdepartmental agency group on affordable energy to co-ordinate and drive Government policy in this area.

The interdepartmental agency group has been asked to draw up an energy affordability strategy. This strategy will set out existing and future approaches to addressing energy affordability and will have regard both to the impact of the carbon tax on low income households and the range of supports outlined above in making its recommendations. As part of its work, the group was asked to make recommendations on the precise package of measures, including in the area of income support, that should be put in place to assist those at risk of fuel poverty. These recommendations will be considered as part of the overall strategy to deal with energy affordability.

Olwyn Enright (Laois-Offaly, Fine Gael)
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I am pleased to be permitted finally to ask this question. There was much toing and froing in regard to it yesterday, with two separate letters being issued to me. The first indicated that the question could not be taken as a priority question, and the second indicated the question was not in order. It was only when I pointed out that my colleagues and I have already posed the same question three or four times that I was allowed to submit it.

I have absolutely no faith in the inter-agency group. The first time its members attended a meeting of the Oireachtas Committee on Social and Family Affairs three or four years ago was probably the worst joint committee meeting I have ever attended. All members were horrified at the lack of information the delegates were able to provide. They attended a later meeting and that was somewhat more useful. Nevertheless, the group has been meeting for some years but we are yet to see a report. When will it be published?

My question specifically asks what will be done to offset the increase in fuel costs for low-income families arising from the introduction of the carbon tax. The Minister studiously avoided that point in his reply. The fuel allowance scheme, as it is currently comprised, was utterly unresponsive to people's emergency needs during the recent harsh winter. Is the group taking that aspect into consideration? Will the Minister deal with the specific question of how it is proposed to offset the increase in fuel costs for low-income families as a consequence of the carbon tax?

Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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The Deputy has asked this question on previous occasions and I have had no difficulty in answering it. I expect to receive the report to which she referred over the summer period. As the Deputy rightly points out, and as I have said from the beginning, the months during which significant heating costs arise are those from October through to spring, that is, the months for which the fuel allowance is payable. As I said, I am awaiting the report of the strategy group. It will have to go to Cabinet, after which we will make a decision on how to assist those at risk of fuel poverty. I envisage a dual approach in this regard. The Deputy has focused on cash assistance, but the other side of the coin is equally important, namely, the question of how we can help people to reduce their energy requirements. Yesterday, we discussed the transfer of the schemes. I expect activation to play a role in insulating some houses.

An issue that is relevant to this and to the Deputy's previous question relates to my discovery, having begun to examine data on fuel poverty, that people living in rented accommodation are far more likely than those in owned occupation to complain that their homes are cold. This is a factor that I must take into consideration not only in regard to this issue, but also in the context of the previous question.

Olwyn Enright (Laois-Offaly, Fine Gael)
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It is a matter for the Private Residential Tenancies Board to ensure rental accommodation is adequate. I have not lost focus on the other side of this issue, as the Minister claims. The warmer home scheme is fantastic if one can manage to avail of it. The problem is one of accessibility. While the various penalties have all been introduced, action to introduce measures to assist people in ensuring their homes are warm has not kept pace. Everybody was hit with the carbon tax on 1 May regardless of income. Some can afford to insulate their homes and others cannot; my concern is that we have not bridged that gap.

The Minister says the report will be available soon, and I have no choice but to take him at his word. We have submitted questions time and again on this issue, and on each occasion the response was that the report would be published "soon". Can the Minister offer an assurance that a decision will be made in the autumn session to assist people on low incomes to meet the additional costs of the carbon tax?

Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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That is the intention, and I will be pushing to ensure it is done. I have not seen a report from the strategy group, but we will continue pressing for it to be brought forward, after which we will have to make decisions on it. To clarify, from the time I came into the Department it was my understanding that the deadline by which action would have to be taken to implement supports for low-income households in terms of fuel affordability was the autumn, when the heating season begins, rather than the summer.