Séamus Healy (Tipperary South, Workers and Unemployed Action Group)
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To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government if he will increase the income limit thresholds for housing applicants to realistic levels, in view of the fact that the current low limits have the effect of ensuring that many families neither qualify for local authority housing or for a mortgage and are condemned to paying a significant part of their income on long term private rented accommodation; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [47311/12]

Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour)
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Section 20 of the Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act , 2009 , dealing with social housing support, was commenced on 1 April 2011. Under the Act, and the related Social Housing Assessment Regulations, 2011, a new standard procedure for assessing applicants for social housing was introduced in every housing authority. The Regulations contain, among other eligibility criteria, maximum income limits, which were subsequently amended upwards by the Social Housing Assessment (Amendment) Regulations 2011. The income bands contained therein refer to the net income of households, that is , net of income tax, PRSI and the Universal Social Charge. The maximum limits are €35,000, €30,000 and €25,000 for a single-person household, depending on the local authority area concerned, with additional allowances based on each additional adult or child in the household.

These provisions, taken together, provide a reasonable basis for ensuring that households on low incomes have access to social housing support. Given the cost to the State of providing social housing, it is considered prudent and fair to direct resources to those most in need of social housing support. The current income eligibility requirements generally achieve this aim.

The terms and conditions governing the operation, including eligibility terms, of annuity mortgages and the Home Choice Loan are set out under the Housing (Local Authority Loans) Regulations 2009 and the Housing (Home Choice Loan) Regulations 2009 respectively. These are available on my Department’s website: . Access to credit is just one of a number of reasons for the low level of transactions in the housing market at present and wider economic sentiment is also impact ing on sentiment in the housing market.

It is not the intention of these mortgage schemes – or of any other Government intervention in the housing sector – to incentivise or entice people into the market. These schemes are designed only to facilitate credit worthy households who have been affected by conditions in the mortgage market. The Home Choice Loan scheme is a temporary one which will be withdrawn once conditions in credit markets return to normal patterns. Recent data published by the Central Bank would indicate that that point has not yet been reached.