Tommy Broughan (Dublin North East, Independent)
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864. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government further to Parliamentary Question No. 557 of 5 of March 2015, if he will confirm that persons in receipt of a housing assistance payment retain their position on the local authority housing list in order to be considered for local authority housing. [11169/15]

Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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When a new applicant applies for a Housing Needs Assessment, the relevant local authority determines what supports are available and most appropriate for that particular applicant. The Housing Assistance Payment (HAP) is deemed to be a social housing support under section 19 of the Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2009, as amended, and accordingly households supported through HAP are not included on the local authority waiting list for social housing support.  However, HAP recipients may access other forms of social housing supports by applying to go on the local authority transfer list.

I issued a statutory direction to the seven authorities involved in the first phase of the HAP statutory pilot, instructing them to take the necessary steps to ensure that households benefiting from HAP can avail of a move to other forms of social housing support, should they wish to do so, through the transfer option. I also directed that HAP recipients, who apply to go on the transfer list, should get full credit for the time they spent on the waiting list and be placed on the transfer list with no less favourable terms than if they had remained on the waiting list.  In practice, housing authorities inform HAP recipients in writing of their entitlement to apply to go on the transfer list when they are approved for HAP.