Thomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail)
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810. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government the number of individual housing assistance payment cases approved for County Meath in each of the months since the scheme was opened in County Meath. [7112/16]

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 the administrative area of Meath County Council where the pilot scheme became operational on 2 November 2015.

Since commencement of the scheme, 89 households have been supported by the scheme in the administrative area of Meath County Council with an average of 5 HAP tenancies being set up per week in 2016. The amount of households supported by the HAP scheme by month is as follows and these figures are in line with what was envisaged in the initial stages of roll out for the scheme in the Meath 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 Meath County Council and I would like to commend the local authority on its engagement with the scheme to date.