Brian Hayes (Dublin South West, Fine Gael)
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Question 309: To ask the Minister for Social and Family Affairs if she will give an undertaking that the Health Services Executive will engage with home owners who can demonstrate that they have not received rental payment from tenants, when such rental payments were to be paid directly to the home owner's account and where this may not have occurred; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [45397/09]

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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The supplementary welfare allowance scheme, which includes rent supplement, is administered on behalf of the department by the Community Welfare Service of the Health Service Executive (HSE). The purpose of rent supplement is to provide short-term 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.

Under the relevant legislative provisions, the Department's relationship is with the tenant; the tenant makes the application for rent supplement and payment is made to the tenant. Rent supplement is specifically for the benefit of tenants to assist them with their accommodation needs.

Legislation does however provide for the making of a rent supplement payment to another person on behalf of the recipient, at the tenant's request and with the consent of the HSE. Almost 20,000 (21%) rent supplement payments are made to a person other than the rent supplemented tenant, for example to a relative, a landlord or landlord's agent.

It is open to the landlord to bring to the attention of the HSE any instance where a tenant is receiving rent supplement but is not paying their rent. Where a Community Welfare Officer becomes aware that a person receiving rent supplement is not using that supplement to meet housing costs, payment of the supplement is suspended and the matter investigated. Any overpayment of rent supplement incurred in circumstances of this kind may be recoverable from the tenant.

Where a landlord has a grievance in relation to the non-payment of rent by a tenant, s/he may apply to the Private Residential Tenancies Board to have the dispute resolved through the board's dispute resolution process.