Paudie Coffey (Waterford, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The ongoing piloting of the HAP will include as part of the national roll-out of the scheme a review of the current allocation and transfer policies of housing authorities to give appropriate weight to households on the transfer lists in the allocation of available social accommodation. It is intended to provide that where a HAP recipient who has come off the waiting list applies to go onto the transfer list, the transfer list will reflect the specific priority and previous position of the recipient on the waiting list. HAP recipients will, therefore, be placed on the transfer list on no less favourable terms than if they had remained on the waiting list. This maintains the principle of preserving the recipient's reasonable expectations in relation to being able to obtain local authority or approved housing body accommodation.

The intention is to revise the social housing allocation regulations in order to ensure that all social housing recipients, including those in receipt of HAP, who wish to do so will still be able to access other local authority housing options through the transfer system. They will, therefore, remain in a position to apply to transfer to other social housing options such as those provided by local authorities or authorised housing bodies, AHBs. Pending the drafting of the required regulations, a commitment was previously given in this House to the effect that ministerial powers under section 22 could be used to issue a direction to the local authorities involved in the pilot scheme in order to ensure that HAP recipients, during that phase, can be afforded the same access to other forms of social housing support via the existing transfer lists, if that is their choice. The guidelines will form part of this process in any event.