Damien English (Meath, Fine Gael)
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Question 98: To ask the Minister for Social and Family Affairs the safety nets that exist for persons who do not have a history of tenancy but who need an emergency social welfare payment, such as the rent supplement, as a result of fleeing domestic violence; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [6099/05]

Séamus Brennan (Dublin South, Fianna Fail)
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The supplementary welfare allowance scheme, which is administered on my behalf by the community welfare division of the Health Service Executive, provides for the payment of a weekly or monthly supplement in respect of rent to an eligible person whose means are insufficient to meet his or her accommodation needs and who does not have accommodation available to him or her from any other source.

Subject to satisfying the usual conditions regarding habitual residency, employment status, rent level conditions and a means test, all applicants for rent supplement who have been assessed by a local authority as being in need of housing can receive rent supplement. This applies regardless of how long they have been renting in the private sector, or even if they never rented before.

If an applicant for rent supplement has not been assessed by a local authority as being in need of housing, they are not necessarily excluded from receiving rent supplement on that account.

A number of categories of people are exempted from the requirement to be assessed by the local authority in this way, including elderly people, people with disabilities, people regarded as homeless by a local authority and people leaving institutions such as prisons.

There are no circumstances in which people fleeing domestic violence situations should have to remain in such situations because of the conditions for receipt of rent supplement. The regulations provide the executive with discretion to deal with exceptional or emergency cases of this sort. In this regard the executive may award a rent supplement to a person who is not an existing private sector tenant and who does not fall into one of the exempted categories, if in the opinion of the executive the circumstances so warrant.

The principal criteria upon which such a determination might be made include the safety and well-being of the person or a situation where a person is being made homeless or forced to use homeless facilities unless rent supplement is paid. Such cases could include people who find themselves caught up in violent domestic situations who have to move accommodation because of fears for their safety or well being.

I am satisfied that the current conditions for receipt of rent supplement, including the discretion available to the executive to deal with exceptional situations, ensure that anybody with a genuine housing need, and who cannot provide for his or her accommodation costs from within his or her own resources, can have access to rent supplement.