Jackie Cahill (Tipperary, Fianna Fail)
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389. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government if a person (details supplied) who is on Cork County Council's housing list for the past seven years, can transfer to Tipperary County Council housing list and maintain his or her status; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [13198/16]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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Under the Social Housing Assessment Regulations 2011, a household may apply to one housing authority only, for social housing support, at a time. Furthermore, it is not possible for a household on the waiting list of one housing authority to transfer its application to another authority and to carry the time spent on the previous list.

The Social Housing Strategy 2020 includes a commitment to examine the possibility of introducing a “housing passport”. The basic premise is that households in receipt of, or qualified for social housing support in one local authority area could potentially transfer to, or be allocated, social housing in another local authority area.

The “housing passport” proposal has been examined on an initial basis and my Department has sought information from local authorities on the potential for them to accommodate households from other local authority areas. Given the pressures on each local authority to accommodate households on their own social housing list, local authorities have reported no spare capacity at this time. However, the “housing passport” approach is being considered in the context of the local authorities that are operating the Housing Assistance Payment (HAP), where there may be some capacity in private rental markets to accommodate households from other local authority areas.