Mary Upton (Dublin South Central, Labour)
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Question 286: To ask the Minister for Social and Family Affairs her views on the fact that people are required to be in private rented accommodation for six months before they can receive rent allowance; her further views on whether this limits people's movement in attempt to secure employment and or pursue their education where they may have to move from one location to another; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [5917/10]

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 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 another source. Its primary purpose is to assist existing tenants who can no longer afford their rent, for example, because they have become unemployed. The Rent Supplement Scheme is not intended to be an alternative to the social housing schemes operated by the Exchequer.

The 2009 Supplementary Budget introduced new arrangements for access to rent supplement. In order to qualify for a rent supplement, from the 27 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. However, 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, which the local authority is not in a position to provide at that time.

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 the 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.

A person would not normally be entitled to rent supplement while engaged in full-time education. However, if an applicant has an entitlement to a back to education allowance, the person concerned may be entitled to rent supplement, subject to various conditions of the scheme being satisfied. Where a person has an entitlement to a back to education allowance and applies for rent supplement, the same criteria (the 183 day rule or has had a housing needs assessment completed with the relevant local authority) apply. A person moving accommodation, whilst in receipt of rent supplement, does not automatically lose their entitlement to rent supplement. A person moving location for the purposes of increasing the likelihood of securing full-time employment should therefore not lose their rent supplement entitlement, provided they continue to meet the other conditions of the scheme.