John Halligan (Waterford, Independent)
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50. To ask the Minister for Social Protection further to her reply to Priority Questions on 21 October 2014 that on average rent allowance applications made in County Waterford are being processed on average within five to ten days, if she will confirm the number of rent allowance applications received within the first six months of 2014; the percentage of those applications that were processed and approved within five to ten days; the percentage that took in excess of three months to process; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [41205/14]

Kevin Humphreys (Dublin South East, Labour)
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The purpose of the rent supplement scheme is to provide short-term income support to assist with reasonable accommodation costs of eligible people living in private rented accommodation who are unable to provide for their accommodation costs from their own resources. The overall aim is to provide short term assistance, and not to act as an alternative to the other social housing schemes operated by the Exchequer.

The average number of claimants on the rent supplement scheme for 2014 to date in payment is approximately 76,200 with an average annualised cost to the State of €4,450 representing €344 million which has been provided for the scheme in 2014.

Waterford, represents 2% of the total recipient base with approximately 1,400 tenancies currently in receipt of rent supplement. At an average annual cost of €3,000, total forecast rent supplement costs for Waterford will be in region of €4.2 million.

The scheme’s cost per tenancy and related volume of recipients clearly suggests that the Department has a duty of care to ensure the legitimacy of tenancies presenting to the scheme. This includes not only verifying the existence of a tenancy, but the amount of rent required and an assessment of a person's means.

The timescale for determining applications for rent supplement is dependent, among other things, on the availability of the required information, such as confirmation of a Housing Needs Assessment (HNA) by the relevant Local Authority, where applicable; details of the applicant’s income and bank statements; and verification of the tenancy arrangements. Some aspects of the application process are inevitably time-consuming and delays can occur where investigations such as home visits or third party evidence are required. As outlined to the Deputy in response to parliamentary question 40164 on 21 October 2014, when the necessary information required to process an application is provided to the Department, a rent supplement claim will be processed within a short timeframe, approximately 5 to 10 days.

In the first six months of 2014, a total of 488 applications for rent supplement were registered in Waterford. An analysis of those claims currently still open indicates that 19% were processed and approved within 10 days of registration and 29% took more than 3 months to be processed and approved due to the investigation process and lack of required documentation. An additional 16% are awaiting decision, but cannot be approved as the Department is still waiting on information from the customer to enable a decision to be made.

John Halligan (Waterford, Independent)
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51. To ask the Minister for Social Protection her views on whether the revised monthly rental limits seek only to preclude certain properties from the rental pool and should have no bearing on the calculation of rent allowance; whether the rent allowance payable should be calculated based on family size and means assessed regardless of the property itself; her plans to abolish the revised monthly rental limits; whether this would in turn permit applicants to rent properties they see fit irrespective of the monthly rent and would ease the application process; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [41388/14]

Kevin Humphreys (Dublin South East, Labour)
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The purpose of the rent supplement scheme is to provide short-term income support to assist with reasonable accommodation costs of eligible people living in private rented accommodation who are unable to provide for their accommodation costs from their own resources. The overall aim is to provide short term assistance, and not to act as an alternative to the other social housing schemes operated by the Exchequer. As of the end of October 2014, there are approximately 72,500 rent supplement recipients for which the Government has provided over €344 million for 2014.

Rent supplement is subject to a statutory maximum limit on the amount of rent that a recipient may incur and is based on the location of the residence and family composition. The scheme provides assistance with reasonable accommodation costs and does not provide access to all housing in all areas. The Department has a responsibility to ensure that maximum value for money is achieved for both the rent supplement recipient and the taxpayer.

I am concerned that the impact of adjusting limits at a time of constrained supply will yield only a very marginal increase in available supply for rent supplement recipients, with the only certainty that raising limits will increase costs disproportionately for the Exchequer with little or no new housing available to new recipients. Raising rent limits may not be the solution to the problem as it is likely to add to further rental inflation and impact, not alone on rent supplement recipients, but also on many lower income workers, their families and students. I plan to keep this matter under close review.

I can assure the Deputy that officers administering rent supplement throughout the country have considerable experience and make every effort to ensure that accommodation needs are met including through the use of their discretionary statutory powers, as necessary. In light of a particular concentration of the homelessness problem in the Dublin area, the Department has agreed a tenancy sustainment protocol with the Dublin local authorities and voluntary organisations to support families on rent supplement who are at risk of losing their accommodation. Since the launch of this protocol in mid-June 2014, some 180 families have had their rent supplement claims revised by the Department. The Department is currently examining the need for such protocols in other areas.

Increasing housing supply and the reactivation of the construction activity is a critical issue for Government and key to restoring stability to the rental market. In this context, it should be noted that the Government has recently launched its Construction Strategy 2020.

As part of Budget 2015, Government also announced significant capital investment of over €2.2 billion for social housing for the next three years. In 2015, over €800 million will be invested in a range of housing programmes representing the first major investment in housing since 2009. My colleague, Alan Kelly T.D., Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, is also due to publish a Social Housing Strategy shortly. This will propose a range of approaches and reforms that are innovative and challenging and will provide a basis for an improved and sustainable approach to the provision of social housing supports in Ireland.