Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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506. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government if he will report on all rental accommodation scheme and leasing tenancies across each local authority including the rents paid on each tenancy, the size of each house, the length of each contract, the expiry date of each contract; and if there are any tenancies where the contract has expired but the tenant has remained in the house. [19573/14]

Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour)
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In the years since the first transfer from Rent Supplement in late 2005, 48,503 households have been transferred by local authorities under the Rental Accommodation Scheme. Of this number 28,712 were housed directly under RAS and a further 19,791 were accommodated under other social housing options. The approval of units into the scheme is entirely a matter for local authorities.

It is not possible to give a definitive number of households in RAS at any given time. Numbers in RASconstantly 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. However from data contained in claims submitted by local authorities of their contracted rents for Quarter 1, 2014, it is estimated that there were approximately 20,200 direct RAS tenancies in place at end March 2014 for which authorities were recently recouped.

Details of the rents paid by each authority in respect of RAS tenancies, the unit size in each case and contract data for all tenancies since 2005, is not collected by my Department. However, relevant data on actual transfer numbers by year, by authority and the annual cost of the scheme to the Exchequer is collected in order to support my Department’s monitoring of the overall progress of the scheme. The average monthly rent paid by local authorities in respect of RAS properties in 2013 was approximately €600, with contract lengths ranging from 4 years to 20 years.

The Social Housing Leasing Initiative has delivered 4,858 social housing units to the end of March 2014. As with RAS, the tenant of the local authority or approved housing body pays an income based differential rent. My Department recoups the cost of accommodation to the local authorities but it does not collect tenant rental data or details of the individual tenancies of these authorities. At the end of March 2014, the average cost of leased units sourced was €507 per month. The units acquired under leasing are 9% 1-bed, 33% 2-bed and 58% 3-bed+ units, and leasing arrangements can range from 4 years to 30 years (where they are acquired by a housing body). The table below shows the breakdown by Local Authority of the 4,858 leasing units delivered.