Tony McLoughlin (Sligo-Leitrim, Fine Gael)
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759. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government the number of applicants who have been accepted onto the housing assistance programme in Sligo County Council in 2016 to date; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [6376/16]

Alan Kelly (Tipperary, Labour)
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The Housing Assistance Payment (HAP) is a major pillar of the Social Housing Strategy 2020. The HAP scheme removes a barrier to employment, by allowing recipients to remain in the scheme if they gain full-time employment, it improves regulation of the rented accommodation being supported and it provides certainty for landlords as regards their rental income. To be eligible for HAP, a person must first apply for and be approved for social housing support by their local authority.

Under the HAP scheme, eligible households source their own accommodation in the private rented sector, payments are made electronically directly to the landlord on behalf of the tenant, and the tenancy agreement is between the HAP recipient and the private landlord.

The first phase of the statutory pilot for the HAP scheme commenced in September 2014 and has been introduced incrementally to 19 local authority areas to date, including in the administrative area of Sligo County Council where the pilot scheme became operational on 16 November 2015.

To date in 2016, 53 households have been supported by the scheme in the administrative area of Sligo County Council, with an average of 4 tenancies being set up per week in 2016. These figures are in line with what was envisaged in the initial stages of roll out for the scheme in the Sligo County Council area.

It should be borne in mind that HAP is a demand-led scheme and in this context, I am pleased at how the HAP scheme is being operated within the administrative area of Sligo County Council and I would like to commend the local authority on its engagement with the scheme to date.