Michael Ring (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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Question 372: To ask the Minister for Social and Family Affairs if an anomaly exists in relation to a reply given to a person (details supplied) in County Mayo. [28356/09]

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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Rent supplement is administered on behalf of the department by the community welfare service of the Health Service Executive as part of the supplementary welfare allowance scheme.

Rent supplement scheme is intended 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.

In determining entitlement to rent supplement, a community welfare officer must have regard to the statutory qualifying conditions of the scheme and the circumstances of each individual case.

There are a number of qualifying conditions that must be satisfied to qualify for payment of rent supplement. Under Article 9(2) (b) of the Social Welfare (Consolidated Supplementary Welfare Allowance) Regulations 2007 (SI 412 of 2007), it is a condition of a person's entitlement to rent supplement that they could reasonably have afforded the rent at the commencement of the tenancy, had at that time an expectation that s/he could have afforded the rent into the future and had experienced a substantial change in his or her circumstances leading to an inability to afford the rent. Failing that, a person may qualify for rent supplement on a number of other grounds including having been assessed by a housing authority as being homeless or having a housing need, be in receipt of a disability type payment or in any other circumstance which, in the opinion of a community welfare officer, warrant a rent supplement being paid.

The Executive has advised that rent supplement was refused on the basis that the person concerned was not in a position to afford the rent at the commencement of the tenancy in question. An appeal by the person concerned against this decision to an Appeals Officer of the Executive and to the Chief Appeals Officer of the Department of Social and Family Affairs was unsuccessful.

If the circumstances of the person concerned have changed, it is open to him to make a new application for rent supplement.