Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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200. To ask the Minister for Social Protection if the income a parent receives for the domiciliary care allowance in respect of the extra costs incurred for a child because of their special circumstances is taken into account as household income when considering an application for rent supplement under the supplementary welfare scheme; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [7996/15]

Lucinda Creighton (Dublin South East, Independent)
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214. To ask the Minister for Social Protection the plans in place and the progress that has been made to provide young persons on a reduced rate of payment, trapped in homelessness, with the support and financial means to exit homelessness; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [8181/15]

Kevin Humphreys (Dublin South East, Labour)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 200 and 214 together.

The rent supplement scheme provides support to eligible people living in private rented accommodation whose means are insufficient to meet their accommodation costs and who do not have accommodation available to them from any other source. There are currently approximately 70,700 rent supplement recipients for which the Government has provided over €298 million for 2015.

Rent supplement is subject to a means test which is normally calculated to ensure that a person, after the payment of rent, has an income equal to the rate of basic supplementary welfare allowance appropriate to their family circumstances, less a minimum contribution which recipients are required to pay from their own resources.

Under social welfare legislation payment received under the domiciliary care allowance scheme is classed as non-assessable means for the purposes of calculating rent supplement and is excluded from the assessment of means.

The reduced rates of jobseeker’s allowance for younger persons encourage young jobseekers to improve their skills and remain active in the labour market in order to avoid the risk of becoming long-term unemployed. Where a person is in receipt of a reduced rate of jobseeker's allowance and he or she participates in a course of education or training a higher rate of €160 applies.

The aim of the Youth Guarantee is to provide young people under the age of 25 with a good quality offer of employment, continued education, an apprenticeship or a traineeship within a short time of becoming unemployed. The main plank of the guarantee is assistance to young people in finding and securing sustainable jobs, through earlier and enhanced engagement processes. In addition, additional places on a number of programmes and youth-oriented variants of existing schemes have been rolled out. Young people who are assessed as having a low to medium probability of securing employment in the absence of any support, will receive a Youth Guarantee offer within four months of an initial one-to-one interview.

The Department is actively engaging with Tusla and non-Government organisations in providing the necessary support to vulnerable young people leaving care who are experiencing homelessness or in insecure situations. These cases are managed on a case by case basis and the payment of deposits and rent in advance is considered. This form of assistance is very important to those on low incomes who are at risk of, or who are homeless, or who rely on the private rented market to meet their housing needs.

In 2014, the Department made a total of some 3,000 payments of rent deposits/rent in advance at a cost of €1.48 million throughout the country, of which some 850 payments at a cost of over €360,000 were made to persons’ aged under 25 years.