Tommy Broughan (Dublin North East, Labour)
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427. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government if his Department has been liaising with the Department of Social Protection in developing the proposed new housing assistance payment in such a manner as to ensure that persons in receipt of rental assistance are not forced to pay top ups of rent over and above the rent caps agreed for the areas in which they are living in order to continue to secure their tenancy. [17759/14]

Tommy Broughan (Dublin North East, Labour)
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436. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government if his Department is examining moving away from having caps on the levels of rental assistance provided to persons living in private rented accommodation while on social housing waiting lists to a system whereby the rental assistance is provided on a discretionary basis according to the financial needs of the tenants; or if other methods to reform the current system could be included in the new model to rectify the situation whereby some tenants are not entitled to an adequate amount of rental assistance. [17856/14]

Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 427 and 436 together.

My Department understands that ‘top up’ payments under the rent supplement scheme fall into two specific categories – those that are specifically approved by the Department of Social Protection, where a person has additional income above the rate of supplementary welfare allowance which would allow additional rent payments to be made and still have sufficient income to meet their basic needs, and those that occur when ‘false declarations’ of rent supplement are made through the use of illegal top-ups. While the matter of both authorised and illegal top-ups in rent supplement have been discussed in the context of developing the business processes for the Housing Assistance Payment (HAP) my Department has not included an estimate of rental top-ups for the purposes of HAP in terms of what currently might be paid by tenants under the rent supplement scheme.

Rent limits will also be applied in respect of the HAP scheme and in order to facilitate a smooth implementation for the scheme the current rent limits under the rent supplement scheme will be applied through the transitional implementation phase. It is intended, on completion of this transitional phase, that I as nister for Housing , would set the maximum rent limits in relation to HAP for local authority functional areas . The process of how such limits will be set including any element of discretion will be examined in due course . Until such time as this function in relation to HAP becomes operational , the setting of rent limits for the rent supplement scheme remains the responsibility of my colleague the nister for Social Protection.