Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)
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Question 854: To ask the Minister for Social and Family Affairs if she will withdraw the directive to community welfare officers that they must wait until after a local authority has fully assessed an applicant's housing application before they will grant rent supplement to deserving applicants. [33068/09]

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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The purpose of the rent supplement scheme is to provide short-term support to eligible persons living in private rented accommodation, whose means are insufficient to meet their accommodation costs and who do not have accommodation available to them from another source.

The 2009 Supplementary Budget introduced new arrangements for applications for rent supplement. In order to qualify for rent supplement, from the 27th July 2009, a person must have been residing in private rented accommodation or accommodation for homeless persons (or any combination of these) for a period of 183 days within the preceding 12 months of the date of claim for rent supplement. A person may also qualify for rent supplement where an assessment of housing need has been carried out within the 12 months preceding the date of claim and the person is deemed by the relevant local authority to be eligible for and in need of social housing support.

In all other cases, a person who wishes to apply for rent supplement is referred, in the first instance, for an assessment of eligibility for social housing support by the local housing authority in the area where claim to rent supplement is made (and the person intends to reside). Only when the person has been assessed as being eligible for and in need of social housing support, does the person become eligible for consideration for rent supplement.

The aim of this restriction on entitlement to rent supplement and the new working arrangements is to ensure that housing authorities remain the principal agents both for assessing housing need and for meeting the long-term housing needs of people.

Detailed guidelines on the operation of the restrictions on access to rent supplement were issued simultaneously by the Department of Social and Family Affairs and the Department of Environment, Heritage and Local Government to community welfare staff and local housing authority staff respectively. The guidelines which issued to the local housing authorities advised that they should deal with those presenting with an immediate housing need, by way of social housing accommodation or, where none is available, emergency accommodation until such time as a housing needs assessment is completed. Where emergency accommodation is deemed not appropriate by the relevant local authority, the authority can prioritise the housing needs assessment for this household so that rent support can be provided sooner, where applicable.

These procedures, where operated by local housing authorities, should ensure that those with an urgent housing need have their needs met in the most appropriate manner.