Dessie Ellis (Dublin North West, Sinn Fein)
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345. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government the average rent return from the lowest bracket of local authority tenant for 2013. [30366/14]

Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour)
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My Department does not hold the data sought. However, data prepared by the Housing Agency shows that the average weekly rent in 2012 paid by single adult households in receipt of social welfare support across 29 local authority areas was €26.56. Each housing authority is responsible, under section 58 of the Housing Act 1966, for determining the rent for its dwellings, subject to complying with broad principles laid down by my Department, notably that the rent payable should be related to household income and that low-income households should pay a lower proportion of income in rent. I have, no function in relation to the setting of rents for individual local authority dwellings, which is entirely a matter for the housing authority concerned.

Section 58 of the 1966 Act will be replaced in due course by section 31 of the Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2009, which provides for significant harmonisation of differential rent levels nationally, while retaining some discretion for individual authorities in setting rents in their own areas. Section 31 also empowers housing authorities to include a charge in the rent for specified works and services provided to their dwellings. I intend to make regulations under section 31 in the coming months putting in place the new arrangements for determining local authority rents, which will continue to be related to the tenant’s capacity to pay.