Michelle Mulherin (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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183. To ask the Minister for Social Protection the circumstances in which a community welfare officer may exercise discretion and pay rent allowance to a separated spouse with a housing need who has left the family home, which is in joint names of both spouses, but because no formal separation agreement, judicial separation or divorce is in place has been deemed ineligible by a local authority pursuant to section 20 of the Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2009 for social housing support; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [51755/13]

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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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 any other source. There are approximately 81,000 rent supplement recipients for which the Government has provided over €403 million for 2013. In order to qualify for a rent supplement a person must have been residing in private rented accommodation or accommodation for homeless persons or an institution (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 a housing 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 a housing authority. 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. Policy in relation to eligibility for social housing and housing needs assessment is a matter for the Department of Environment, Community and Local Government.

Department officials operating the supplementary welfare allowance scheme have discretionary powers to award a supplement in exceptional cases where it appears that the circumstances of the case so warrant. Each case is examined individually and is decided on the basis of the situation presented. There is no general guidance to direct or limit this discretion which is seen as a key element of the supplementary welfare allowance scheme.