Seán Kyne (Galway West, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

311. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government the progress in designing and implementing the new housing assistance payment; if the new payment system will support persons who have recently found new employment following a period of unemployment; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [20304/14]

Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

On 18 July 2013, the Government approved the introduction of the Housing Assistance Payment (HAP). This new scheme is being designed so as to bring all of the social housing services provided by the State together under the local authority system, with local authorities being responsible for all households with an established housing need and ensuring significant efficiencies in the provision of rental assistance. On 30 April 2014, Government approved the publication of the Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2014 which will, when enacted, provide the legislative framework for the introduction of HAP. My Department and the Department of Social Protection continue to work closely on the legal, policy and operational issues involved in developing and introducing HAP.

HAP will provide a new framework for the provision of rental assistance, and will support the removal of existing barriers to employment by allowing HAP recipients to remain in the scheme if they gain full-time employment. In that context a household which is eligible for HAP will, having sourced appropriate accommodation, pay a rental contribution to the local authority based on the differential rent scheme for the relevant local authority. The local authority differential rent scheme is an income based scheme which relates the amount of rent a household must pay to the household’s income and therefore their ability to pay. The planned introduction of a harmonised rents framework coupled with a phased reduction in rental assistance will go some way towards providing additional security to households in the early stages of returning to employment.

Following an administrative and statutory pilot phase in 2014 which involves 7 local authorities, roll out to the remaining local authorities is scheduled to begin on a phased basis in 2015. It is intended that the pilot and implementation phase will prioritise, as much as is possible, the transfer to HAP of long-term unemployed rent supplement recipients, or those who are homeless or at risk of homelessness.