Frank O'Rourke (Kildare North, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Ceann Comhairle's office for selecting this matter for discussion as a Topical Issue. I thank the Minister, Deputy Eoghan Murphy, for coming to the Chamber for this debate. I would like to outline three areas of significance that are contributing to people unnecessarily ending up homeless or being unable to access the services that have been put in place to prevent them from becoming homeless and help them to get into some form of semi-permanent or permanent accommodation. I believe a policy change from the Minister or the Department will be needed to address some of the issues I am raising. Perhaps a letter of approval can be sent to each local authority to clarify the position, provide more flexibility and assist in a positive way. As a representative of the Kildare North constituency, I am speaking about Kildare County Council. Everybody in this House wants to prevent people from becoming homeless and help them to secure a roof over their heads through the social housing allocation of each local authority or through private rental accommodation.

The first area I will touch on is the homeless housing assistance payment, HAP, scheme. The Minister put in place a placefinder service under the homeless HAP scheme to help people to find private homes to rent. When a tenant who has received notice to quit presents himself or herself to Kildare County Council or any other local authority, he or she has to find a home so that he or she does not end up homeless. We are finding that people in such circumstances are unable to access upfront deposits until very close to their eviction or get-out dates. It can be extremely difficult for such people to find homes at short notice. Some people do not get their deposits until three or four weeks before their eviction dates. As it is very difficult to find properties in north Kildare, like everywhere else, through the private rental market, people need to be given as long as possible to try to source private rental accommodation.

Having spoken to various groups about this issue, I am aware that when people present themselves to a local authority after receiving notice to quit - three or four months' notice is normally given, but it might be as little as two months in some cases - they aggressively pursue new properties in order to ensure they and their families do not end up homeless. If people in such circumstances are able to prove that they have found a property, if they have confirmed to the homeless section of the local authority that they are going to be homeless and if the notice to quit is in order with the statutory guidelines, I believe they should be able to access a deposit and one month's rent to assist them in finding alternative accommodation. It does not matter whether this happens a month or three months in advance of the eviction date. As it gets closer to the eviction date, it gets far too tight to try to find a property. That is how people end up in hotels. I know of cases in which people from County Kildare are being accommodated in hotels in Carlow and Portlaoise. This is not very practical for families when children are going to school and people are going to work. People in these circumstances need all the time and all the supports they can get to try to find alternative accommodation.

I can understand where the Department's 30% disposable income calculation comes from. It is acceptable that people must have a disposable income to live on after they have paid their rent and made their top-up payment. As I have said in this House previously, the difficulty is that even with the 20% discretion under the HAP scheme, there is still a gap with current rental market values. I have asked for this discretion to be increased temporarily while we are waiting for supply and stock to come into the market. In the absence of such an increase, the gap between the payment under the HAP scheme and the actual current rental market value needs to be made up so that families in these circumstances can find homes. People are getting letters of support from reliable family members - parents, brothers and sisters - who are in full employment and are willing to help with their efforts to get homes and pay the balance. Under Kildare County Council's current policy, unfortunately, it is unable to accept such letters unless it can get bank statements and letters from employers to confirm that the people in question are in permanent employment and can support their family members in making top-up payments. That is adding to the substantial distress and concern of families. It is very difficult to get a property. If one is lucky enough to get a property, one should be allowed to get family support to make a top-up payment as long as one has a strong letter of support. I believe it is unwarranted to require people to undertake needless tasks like getting personal details from those who are providing support to them.

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Deputy for raising this issue. I acknowledge his hard work and dedication on it. We have been in contact on HAP and homelessness prevention measures on a number of occasions. The Deputy has been working with my staff over recent months to bring various concerns to my attention. He has explained his concerns about the terms and consistency of application of homeless HAP in his area. I have heard what he has said. HAP is operating as a flexible and immediate housing support and is available throughout the State. It is playing a vital role in families and individuals that are eligible for housing supports. More than 40,000 households are having their housing needs met via HAP. Over 21,000 landlords and agents are in receipt of payments under the HAP scheme.

As the Deputy knows, the rent charged for HAP accommodation must be within the limits set down for the household type in each local authority area. HAP tenants pay a weekly rent contribution to the local authority, based on their income and ability to pay. The HAP rent limits were increased significantly in July 2016. They were increased by up to 60% in some areas. The Government has given each local authority the flexibility to agree to make a payment under the HAP scheme of up to 20% above the maximum rent limit if that is necessary because of local rental market conditions.

The increased rent limits, together with the additional discretion available to local authorities to exceed the maximum rent limit where necessary, are allowing HAP households to find suitable accommodation and willing landlords. At the end of the second quarter of 2018, excluding households accommodated under the homeless HAP arrangements operated by the Dublin Region Homeless Executive, 21.3% of households nationally were benefitting from the additional discretion. In those cases, the average rate of discretionary payment was 15.7% above the relevant rent limits. In a further reply, I can give more detail on this to the Deputy.

In addition to the flexible and immediate housing supports set out, a significant dimension to homeless HAP was the establishment of the place finder service, to which the Deputy referred. Homeless HAP is a targeted support for homeless households who may find it difficult to secure HAP tenancies and, under the place finder service, the local authorities can appoint new dedicated staff to assist individuals in emergency accommodation to find appropriate long-term housing solutions. The place finder service has been in operation in the Dublin region since 2015 and the option to establish the service was made available to all local authorities from January 2018. It was take up in Kildare earlier this year. It is a matter for each local authority to determine the appropriate deployment of the place finder service based on local needs, including the point at which a household will be directed to the service. I understand that many local authorities are focusing on those households who are already in emergency accommodation, assisting them to transition into HAP tenancies. The place finder service recognises that, for a certain number of people, particularly those already in emergency accommodation, sourcing property and securing a tenancy, including the financial constraints around deposits and advance rent, might be very challenging.

The provisions of the homeless HAP scheme provide local authorities with the discretion to assist homeless households by providing a deposit to secure property and paying up to two months' advance rent. This discretion was provided as an exceptional measure for exceptionally challenging circumstances and, as such, must be applied only where necessary. To broaden the provisions of advance rent and deposits is contradictory to the principles of the HAP scheme, and could undermine the careful checks and balances that are in the system to ensure the best use of public funds. That said, the Deputy has been engaging with my Department on this matter. I hope he will be able to have further engagement in which he can bring to light more specific issues that can be examined given what he has raised in the Dáil today.

The homeless HAP scheme has been successfully utilised by the Dublin Regional Homeless Executive across the four Dublin local authority areas since February 2015, supporting more than 3,600 households to date. More than 1,600 new homeless HAP tenancies have been set up so far this year. That goes for people at risk of homelessness or coming out of emergency accommodation. Therefore, it is an important support for people in this crisis.

We monitor HAP data on an ongoing basis. I have a report to hand for the Deputy that he will be interested to see. We also monitor other key information relating to the private rental market. I am satisfied that the current HAP rent limits and the flexibility to exceed them in certain circumstances provide local authorities with the capacity necessary to assist households in securing rented accommodation that meets their needs. However, I am grateful to the Deputy for raising his concerns. I hope he will engage further with me and the Department over the coming days.

Frank O'Rourke (Kildare North, Fianna Fail)
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To that end, I am meeting some of his officials tomorrow on these three issues, in Dublin as far as I know. If there is clarity and flexibility in respect of the issues, it will assist positively. I am not criticising the measures at all. What I am saying is that the homeless HAP and place finder services put in place in Kildare County Council earlier this year were welcome. This was a debate we had just before the summer recess. Anything we can do to prevent people from becoming homeless is welcome. The issue, however, is the timing associated with one's ability to gain access to the upfront rent and deposit. That is the key and the point I wanted to tease out with the Minister.

Departmental officials and the council are saying one has to be very close to one's eviction date before one can gain access to the upfront deposit and rent. That is contributing to homelessness because one will not get the property the day one goes out looking for it. If one is looking for a property before one can access the fund, one is competing with someone who has the money in his or her back pocket. Therefore, if someone has notice to quit - a statutory document that meets the criteria - he or she is virtually on the home stretch to being homeless unless he or she gets another home. If one has a notice to quit in two or three months, one will have to go into emergency accommodation unless one can find a home. That is costly. We want to avoid that. Therefore, I suggest that tenants should be able to access the payment immediately on getting the notice to quit to help them to get another home between then and being evicted.

On the 30% threshold related to disposable income and the letter of guarantee, the problem is that most families need a three-bedroom semi-detached house. I know the HAP relates to the family unit but, rather than getting into that calculation, as we do not have time, we should note it equates in some cases to the rent for a three-bedroom semi-detached house. With 20% discretion, the HAP in Kildare is about €1,250. The current market value is €1,500 so a top-up is needed. We need to be able to get the local authorities and Department to agree to accepting the letters of guarantee that are coming in without forensically subjecting them to post mortem analyses, which leads to further problems.

The final issue concerns people on the housing list who are currently in HAP units. They could be in them for one, two or three years. Where these houses come up for sale, perhaps because the landlord or landlady is under financial pressure from banks or other personal reasons, is there a possibility that the Department could engage with the local authorities to ask them to purchase them? They are not purchasing the units. The families affected need to look for alternative accommodation but may not be able to gain access to any, perhaps due to the lack of supply, and end up going into hotels, not even in the county but perhaps in a neighbouring county. That is a problem. Can some clarity be brought to this? Can approval be given to the local authorities such that if a property occupied by someone getting the HAP payment is being sold, it can be purchased either by the local authority or the departmental agencies?

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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I welcome the fact that the Deputy recognises that the HAP is working. Of course it can be improved. Not every Deputy in this House recognises the considerable support the HAP is giving to people who are at risk of homelessness or coming out of emergency accommodation. Tens of thousands of people throughout the country have been supported. Some individuals, for ideological reasons, refuse to recognise that. Therefore, I welcome the Deputy's comments.

Let me address the three specific points the Deputy raised. On the matter of when someone can access the deposit and the first month's rent, we should consider it. I want the Deputy to engage on that. I will tell my officials to engage with him to determine what is going wrong. We do not want, for administrative reasons, to be putting people into distress when they should not be in distress.

On the Deputy's second point, on the gap and letters of comfort, we should examine this also. We are talking about taxpayers' money so we have to ensure appropriate checks and balances are in place. I do not want to be taking discretion from local authorities. Since they are at the front line of the services and at the coalface, they might have a better understanding of what they are dealing with themselves. Of course we can examine it, however.

With regard to the third point, on the Department potentially buying homes or allowing the local authority to buy a home with a tenant in HAP and which might be sold, the difficulty concerns value for money and cost. It may not represent value for money for the local authority to purchase the home. That is a call it has to make. It is based on the costs of the time, its own building programme, other acquisition programmes it has, prevailing market rates and everything else. I appreciate the Deputy's highlighting of these issues. We can engage positively on them through my Department over the coming days and through the meetings the Deputy is having.

I will give the Deputy the official report being prepared for the Oireachtas joint committee tomorrow. Let me give the Deputy a couple of figures on Kildare. The total number of active HAP tenancies is 1,667, 355 of which were set up in 2018. That is roughly 14 per week. Therefore, HAP is helping people in the Deputy's county, which is great. We want it to help more. The average rent being paid in Kildare by the local authority to the landlord is €916, which is above the national average. Of course, Kildare is very close to where many people want to live and work.

The Deputy also raised the use of discretion. About 42.6% of people getting HAP, or almost half, are getting the discretionary payment. They are getting some uplift above the HAP rate. With regard to the amount of uplift, they are getting an average of 14.1%. The Deputy, when talking about the gap, should note that even those who are coming into the system do not need the full 20%. Most of them are in this category. Therefore, there is still plenty of flexibility and plenty of headroom in the 20%, notwithstanding the point the Deputy raised about letters of comfort and the additional payments. We can consider these issues. The HAP is working. Anything we can do to make it work better, I will absolutely welcome.