Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Independent)
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Question 235: To ask the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government if he will seek a common approach by local authorities to persons who have or are due to lose their homes due to mortgages that are unsustainable; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [21652/11]

Willie Penrose (Longford-Westmeath, Labour)
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The Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2009 provides for a new process of housing needs assessment for applicants for social housing support and empowers the Minister to make regulations setting out the criteria for determining the eligibility for such support. These criteria include, but are not limited to, income levels and the availability of alternative accommodation. Amended regulations have now been made under the Act to include the unsustainability of a household's current accommodation under the terms of the Code of Conduct for Mortgage Arrears 2011 as being amongst the criteria to be taken into consideration in assessing need. The amending regulations came into effect on 1 July 2011. The same income thresholds will be in place for households who have voluntarily surrendered their homes or had their homes repossessed as all others being assessed for social housing support.