Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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Question 119: To ask the Minister for Social and Family Affairs the arrangements that are in place to collect PPS numbers from landlords who are benefitting from rent supplement payments to their tenants; the arrangements in place to provide this information to the Revenue Commissioners; the number and percentage of such landlords for whom his Department has full PPS details; the number of these that have been passed on to the Revenue Commissioners; if the application form has been amended to capture such details; if the computer hardware and software is in place to retain this data; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [5230/08]

Tommy Broughan (Dublin North East, Labour)
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Question 129: To ask the Minister for Social and Family Affairs the action he is taking to ensure that his Department complies with the provision in the Finance Acts that tax be deducted at the standard rate from rent supplement payments paid directly to non-resident landlords; the extent of his Department's or tenants' liabilities for previous years where taxes were not collected; and the way he will ensure that tax is collected. [5233/08]

Martin Cullen (Waterford, Fianna Fail)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 119 and 129 together.

Rent Supplement is administered on my behalf by the community welfare service division of the Health Service Executive (HSE), as part of the supplementary welfare allowance scheme. The purpose of the rent supplement scheme is to provide short-term income support to eligible people living in private rented accommodation whose means are insufficient to meet their accommodation costs and who do not have accommodation available to them from any other source. The tenant makes the application and payment of rent supplement is made to the tenant in most cases. However, as with other social welfare payments, the recipient may nominate an agent to receive payment on their behalf. At present there are 60,000 recipients of rent supplement with 13,000 recipients opting to have payment made direct to a landlord or landlord's agent.

The Revenue Commissioners are interested in rent supplement payments as a means of identifying landlord income. My Department has provided the Revenue Commissioners with details of landlords relating to rent supplement, on an annual basis for many years and in the format requested by them. The information supplied pursuant to Section 888 of the Taxes Consolidation Act 1997, consists of the full address of the tenancy, the name, address and telephone number of the landlord or agent and a statement of all payments arising from each individual tenancy. Section 123 of the Finance Act 2007 requires that my Department and/or the HSE request a PPS No. or other tax reference number from the owner of a premises in respect of which rent supplement is to be paid. The request must be made before payment of rent supplement is made. The landlord is also required to comply with this request before payment of rent supplement is made. The required data must be supplied to the Revenue Commissioners by my Department or advice to the effect that the landlord has not complied with the request for such information.

Senior officials of my Department are holding discussions with the Revenue Commissioners to address issues associated with the collection and recording of landlord PPS or other tax reference numbers. The intention is to put in place procedures which will meet the needs of the Revenue while ensuring that there is no negative impact for the tenant who is an uninvolved third party in this matter. In the interim the Department is amending its computer systems to enable the landlord's PPS number to be recorded electronically.

Records for 2007 show that there were just over 900 landlords living outside of the State where rent supplement is in payment. The value of the payments made to tenants of these landlords was €4.1 million which represents just 1% of total rent supplement expenditure in 2007. In most of these cases, rent supplement is paid to the tenant in Ireland. 149 tenants of 127 landlords living outside of the State had nominated their landlord to receive payment of rent supplement directly. The value of these payments was €940,000 approx. This represents just over 0.24% of annual expenditure on rent supplement. The Department has, however, given details of the landlords in question to the Revenue Commissioners. This information allows the Revenue Commissioners to pursue relevant enquiries as to the tax compliance position of the landlords in question.