Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The Housing (Amendment) Bill 2013 makes technical changes to section 31 of the Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2009 relating to the charging of local authority rents, which is an important element in the social housing framework. The Bill is necessary because the Parliamentary Counsel has advised that text in section 31(5) of the 2009 Act precludes the enactment from being commenced in a sequence that ensures a clear statutory basis for housing authorities to charge rents for their dwellings during the transition from the existing rents regime to the new rents system. To rectify this problem, the Parliamentary Counsel has advised that section 31(5) should be amended so the enactment can be brought into operation in a manner that enables enabling housing authorities to make their new rent schemes under section 31(5) before their rent-charging powers under section 31(3) come into operation.

I am also taking the opportunity presented by this amending Bill to delete text from section 31(6) that conflicts with a rent system in which charges are determined by reference to household composition and income and, where applicable, the cost of facilities provided to dwellings. I am fully in favour of local authority rents being linked to household income. Therefore, I am proposing to delete from the enactment references to specific rent-setting criteria other than income. Responsibility for setting local authority rents under section 58 of the Housing Act 1966 has been devolved to individual city and county managers since 1986. While all housing authorities charge rents related to the income of tenant households, similar households in similar accommodation are charged varying amounts of differential rent, depending on which local authority is letting the accommodation. Individual authorities also differ on issues like the types and amounts of income that are reckonable for differential rent purposes.

There is no justification for this disparate approach to rent setting for accommodation that is funded wholly by the Exchequer. Section 31 of the 2009 Act, therefore, facilitates a significant harmonisation in rents charged, while retaining the principle of rents related to household income and leaving some discretion to individual authorities to determine rent policies in their areas. The new system will be more equitable and transparent, with regulations providing for rents made up of a base element for each household member and a differential element based on a proportion of net household income in excess of a threshold that varies according to household composition. The regulations will set out a common method for determining household income across the country for rent purposes and provide for a transitional period so as to allow for a phased introduction of material adjustments to rent levels arising in individual cases under the new system.

Under section 31 of the 2009 Act, individual housing authorities are also empowered in their rent schemes to include charges in the rent relating to the costs of works and services provided to the dwellings under the Housing Acts, and regulations will set out the manner in which charges will be determined. Another feature of the new rents system is that, for the first time, council members will have a statutory role in determining local rent policies within the parameters laid down at national level. This aspect of the new arrangements received widespread support from Deputies during the Dáil debates on the Bill.

The new rent schemes that housing authorities will make under section 31 of the 2009 Act will apply to beneficiaries under the new housing assistance payment, HAP, scheme to be administered by housing authorities, which will replace rent supplement in the case of households with a long-term housing need. The household contribution to the rent payable for HAP dwellings will be determined under the new rents system for local authority housing. An immediate spin-off of this will be the removal of a barrier to employment that currently exists in the rent supplement scheme, whereby a rent supplement recipient who returns to full-time employment loses entitlement to that payment. Thus, the new HAP scheme, allied to section 31 rent schemes, will go some way towards providing additional security to households in the early stages of returning to employment.

Proposed legislation for the housing assistance payment scheme will be included in a second housing Bill that I hope to bring forward later this year. Also included in that Bill will be a new procedure for the repossession of local authority dwellings to replace section 62 of the Housing Act 1966, which the Supreme Court declared in February 2012 is incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights in certain circumstances. The proposed Bill will also underpin current requirements in regard to the entitlement of non-Irish nationals to be assessed by local authorities for social housing support. I am also planning to legislate for a new tenant purchase scheme for existing local authority houses along incremental lines. I will be working to bring the substantive housing Bill to enactment as quickly as possible in order to maintain the momentum on the programme of social housing reform currently under way.

To return to the Housing (Amendment) Bill 2013, I look forward to the support of the House for what is a short, technical enactment required to facilitate the effective operation of existing legislation.