Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance)
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39. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection if she will disregard means testing of family income supplement with rent assessments; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [39685/17]

Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance)
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I refer to the means testing of family income supplement, FIS, for rent assessment. I ask the Minister to disregard the means test. When a person is due for a rent assessment FIS is taken into account. Given the current climate, where rents are very high, it negates the purpose of having family income support when it is taken into account for the payment of any support. I ask the Minister to negate that and make a statement on the matter.

Regina Doherty (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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We are all aware that rent supplement plays a vital role in housing just over 38,600 families and individuals at a cost of €253 million in 2017. Rent supplement is a statutory means-tested scheme, paid at differentiated rates of payment according to an applicant’s means and accommodation requirements. It is normally calculated to ensure that a person, after the payment of rent, has enough income at the rate of supplementary welfare allowance, SWA, appropriate to his or her family circumstances, less a weekly minimum contribution. This ensures that the payments are targeted at those most in need of assistance.

The standard weekly minimum contribution which recipients are required to pay from their own resources is €30 for a single person and €40 for a couple. Many recipients pay more than this amount as they are required, subject to their income disregards, to contribute any additional assessable means over and above their appropriate SWA rate towards their accommodation costs. Income from employment and family income supplement in excess of the standard SWA weekly rates of payment attract an additional income disregard and are assessed as follows: the first €75 of such additional income together with 25% of any additional income above €75 is disregarded for means assessment purposes.

Any changes to the rent supplement scheme can only be considered in a budgetary context and within the scope of the overall resources available, not just to my Department but to the Government. The Deputy will be aware that the strategic policy direction of my Department is to return rent supplement to its original purpose, that is, a short-term income support while we roll out the HAP scheme which has been very effective and successful to date.

Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance)
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I take issue with the Minister's last sentence. HAP has not been very effective. Every Deputy in the House knows that and during today's debate on housing we will point that out clearly to the Government. The Government is not listening.

The point is that one arm of the State gives a payment to people who are in receipt of low income, namely, FIS. Another arm of the State then assesses them for rent supplement, but in so doing takes FIS into account. As I said, this negates the impact of providing the support to some of the poorest people living and working in this country.

We are robbing Peter to pay Paul. It is not the only situation in which this happens. I refer to the Department's disability payments. People engaged in rehabilitative work have been told that they can work up to 20 hours a week, but Dublin City Council or other local authorities take the 20 hours into account when calculating rent. Again, it is robbing Peter to pay Paul. If we were able to calculate it, we would find the administrative costs far outweigh the cost of allowing people to hold onto their supplementary payments.

Regina Doherty (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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First of all, it is not robbing Peter to pay Paul. FIS supplements the income of tens of thousands of families who are working in casual employment or are in receipt of very low incomes. All income has to be taken into account in rent supplement cases. The fact that a payment has come from a different arm of the State does not mean it is disregarded. It is given from one arm of the State in order to supplement a family's income. From a HAP or rent supplement perspective, in assessing that payment it forms part of a family's income and cannot be disregarded.

I take issue with the Deputy in regard to HAP. I admit it has had a slow start, even in my own county. As of 11 September, 12,700 new HAP tenancies have been set up during 2017. There has been a sizeable reduction in the number of families involved and the amount of money we are spending on rent supplement. Ideally, we would like to reduce rent supplement so that families are in longer term lets or their own homes.

Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance)
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Ideally the Government would like to not have to pay HAP and supplement landlords. People should have a home as they are entitled to under the social welfare system. That is a debate for Private Members' business.

Deputy Boyd Barrett corrected me. The Minister is actually paying Peter to rob Peter. It is an ideological intervention to tell families they will be paid a family income support on the one hand while on the other taking it back because it is being calculated as part of assessments for rent allowance. Whether we are robbing Peter to pay Paul or Paul to pay Peter, factually I am correct. Those who are driven into poverty in this country are those who are being penalised the most by the system.

I would like the Minister to comment on the situation whereby rehabilitative payments which are allowed under disability payment schemes are taken into account in the payment of rent to local authorities.

Regina Doherty (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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In the time I have, I will tell the Deputy that is not true. When someone applies for rent supplement his or her income is taken into consideration. There is an income disregard, but all of his or her income, regardless of whether he or she is working in a full-time or part-time job and in receipt of FIS, is taken into account. The reason family income support is so effective is that it gives an income supplement to people who are on low incomes. From a rent supplement perspective, we are not going to treat people differently, whether they have a full-time job and cannot manage to look for rent supplements without supports or whether they are in receipt of FIS as well as a low-paid job when seeking rent supplement. That is the current situation and we have no plans to change it.