Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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23. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government if he will provide full details of the rental accommodation scheme tenancies and all tenancies under various leasing arrangements across each local authority, including the details of moneys paid to private landlords each year over the last three years; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [11917/14]

Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour)
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The Rental Accommodation Scheme (RAS) commenced in late 2005 and to the end of December 2013 some 47,911 households have been transferred from Rent Supplement to RAS and other social housing options. My Department does not hold information on the number of households in RAS at any given time. Numbers in RAS constantly vary as contracts end, tenants move on to other properties, landlords withdraw from the scheme, new tenancies are allocated or vacancies in contracted units are filled. I will circulate a table, with the official record, setting out the transfers completed by local authority from 2011 to 2013.

Recoupment made to local authorities under the RAS covers not only the contracted rents due to private landlords but also payments that are made to Approved Housing Bodies, administration costs, deposits on newly acquired accommodation, payments made in respect of additional units supplied under the Social Partnership Agreement Towards 2016 and up to very recently payments in respect of homeless persons. My Department does not hold data on the amount directly paid by local authorities to private landlords nor does it have access to the amounts concerned by each local authority area. Expenditure on RAS in the past three years was €115.9 million in 2011, €125.4 million in 2012 and €130.8 million in 2013.

4,736 social housing units have been delivered under the Social Housing Leasing Initiative to the end of February 2014. Expenditure to the end of February on this initiative has been some €66.9m. This expenditure includes the cost of recouping the interest on 1,985 unsold affordable units to local authorities and leasing costs on 497 units in the ownership of approved housing bodies or the NAMA SPV. The remaining 2,256 units have been acquired under lease or rental arrangements from private property owners. The current cost of the private property owner units is an average of €6,472 per unit per annum.

Table

Transfers to RAS & Social Housing 2011 - 2013