Arthur Morgan (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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Question 242: To ask the Minister for Social and Family Affairs the amount paid by his Department to landlords in the private rented sector in respect of supplementary welfare rent allowance in each of the past five years. [6676/05]

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 rent supplement to assist with reasonable accommodation costs of eligible people who are unable to provide for their accommodation costs from their own resources and who do not have accommodation available to them from any other source.

Entitlement to rent supplement rests with the tenant, not the landlord. Payment is normally made to the tenant, although a person who is awarded rent supplement may nominate his or her landlord as being the person to whom the payment should issue.

Details of expenditure on rent supplements in each of the last five years are set out in the following table.

Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael)
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Question 243: To ask the Minister for Social and Family Affairs the circumstances in which his Department will not pursue an overpayment of social welfare when his Department failed to act within a reasonable period on information supplied to it; and if these provisions apply in the case of a person (details supplied) in Dublin 5. [6853/05]

Séamus Brennan (Dublin South, Fianna Fail)
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An overpayment amounting to €1,619 occurred in the case of the person concerned because old age contributory pension and widower's contributory pension were paid concurrently for a period of ten weeks due to departmental error. It was decided, having regard to all of the circumstances of the case, to seek recovery.

The code of practice for recovery of overpayments, SI 227 of 1996, requires that every effort is made to recover overpayments in full irrespective of how they arise. The code sets out the procedures to be followed by the Department after it assesses an overpayment against a person. Under the code, repayment of an overpayment may be reduced or cancelled in circumstances where it arose because of an error by the Department and the person concerned could not have been reasonably aware of the error.

On 8 July 2004, my Department wrote to the person concerned informing him of the overpayment and of the Department's intention to recover the moneys due by way of deductions of €10 per week from his widower's contributory pension. This letter afforded him the right to comment on the overpayment recovery. As no response was received, deductions of €10 per week commenced with effect from 18 February 2005. The person concerned should contact my Department if he wishes to raise issues regarding the recovery of the overpayment.