Written answers
Tuesday, 8 December 2015
Department of Environment, Community and Local Government
Housing Assistance Payments Data
Dessie Ellis (Dublin North West, Sinn Fein)
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591. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government the number of housing assistance payment tenancies in operation and yearly cost of these tenancies to the State by county in tabular form. [44195/15]
Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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The implementation of the Housing Assistance Payment (HAP)scheme is a key priority for Government and a major pillar of the Social Housing Strategy 2020. To date, the HAP scheme has been introduced incrementally to 18 local authority areas, with over 5,200 households being supported by the scheme across those pilot local authority areas. Dublin City Council is also implementing a HAP pilot scheme for homeless households in the Dublin region on behalf of all four Dublin local authorities. Initially, for the purposes of the HAP statutory pilot, Limerick City and County Council have been nominated by the City and County Management Association (CCMA) as the lead authority in respect of the HAP project and are providing a transactional shared service hub for all local authorities operating HAP during the pilot phase. All HAP financial transactions, including the collection of differential rent from tenants and the payment of HAP rents directly to landlords, are being made by the transactional shared services hub. To date in 2015 , there has been expenditure of €10.3m on the HAP scheme, which comprises landlord and administration recoupment payments to Limerick City and County Council.
Funding for HAP has been increased to €47.7 million in 2016, in order to meet the continuing costs of HAP households supported at end 2015, and the costs of an additional 10,000 households to be supported by the scheme in 2016.
I am pleased with the operation of the HAP scheme and I would like to commend the local authorities on their engagement with the scheme to date. The information requested on households supported by HAP is set out in the following table.
| Local Authority | Commencement Date of HAP Scheme | Active HAP Tenancies (30/11/2015) |
|---|---|---|
| Carlow CC | 29/06/2015 | 70 |
| Clare CC | 29/06/2015 | 184 |
| Cork City Co | 29/06/2015 | 87 |
| Cork CC | 15/09/2014 | 824 |
| Donegal CC | 25/05/2015 | 360 |
| Dublin City Co* | 18/12/2014 | 42 |
| Dun- Rathdown CC* | 18/12/2014 | 1 |
| Fingal CC* | 18/12/2014 | 6 |
| Galway CC | 16/11/2015 | 1 |
| Kildare CC | 02/11/2015 | 6 |
| Kilkenny CC | 01/10/2014 | 494 |
| Limerick City & Co | 15/09/2014 | 1013 |
| Louth CC | 01/10/2014 | 622 |
| Monaghan CC | 01/10/2014 | 168 |
| Meath CC | 02/11/2015 | 6 |
| Offaly CC | 15/06/2015 | 71 |
| South Dublin CC** | 01/10/2014 | 523 |
| Tipperary CC | 29/06/2015 | 155 |
| Sligo CC | 16/11/2015 | 1 |
| Waterford City & Co | 15/09/2015 | 628 |
| Total | 5262 |
** Includes some households supported through the HAP Homeless pilot.
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