Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Anti-Austerity Alliance)
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138. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government his views on the operation of the housing assistance payment scheme, HAP, in the Dublin City Council area; the number of approvals for the HAP that have been made by homeless services each month since it came into being; the number of those approvals that applied to homeless persons who had HAP accommodation sourced by homeless services each month and the number of homeless persons who had to source a landlord willing to accept the HAP without assistance from homeless services. [28865/16]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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The implementation of the Housing Assistance Payment (HAP) scheme is a key Government priority and the accelerated roll - out of the scheme on a national basis is an important early action for completion in the Government’s Rebuilding IrelandActionPlan for Housing and Homelessness. Local authorities and my Department are working closely together in order to ensure the successful implementation of the scheme. HAP is now available to all qualified households in 19 local authority areas with over 13,600 households currently being supported by the scheme and 9,500 separate landlords and agents providing accommodation to those households.

The Homelessness Pilot of the HAP scheme has been operational since February 2015 across the four housing authorities in the Dublin Region, i.e. Dublin City Council, Dún Laoghaire Rathdown County Council, Fingal County Council and South Dublin County Council and is being implemented through the Dublin Region Homeless Executive (DRHE). The focus of this pilot scheme is to transition qualified households from emergency accommodation, including hotels, into private rented tenancies.

While eligible homeless households may source accommodation for themselves, a dedicated placement team, the Dublin Place-Finder Service, has also been established to engage directly with property-owners and support qualified households to find suitable tenancies and to ensure that any additional supports that may be needed are put in place. A publicity campaign targeting landlords is also currently in place. My Department does not hold data on the number of homeless households that have sourced accommodation under the homeless HAP scheme without the assistance of the Dublin Place-Finder Service .

Rebuilding Irelandcommits to meeting the housing needs of 1,750 homeless households through the Homelessness Pilot of the HAP scheme over 2016 and 2017, as part of the overall accelerated HAP target of supporting 27,000 new households over the same period. There are currently 573 households being supported by the Homelessness Pilot of the HAP scheme across the four Dublin local authority areas. Some 401 of those households or 70% represent households with children.

While a month by month break down of homeless households supported is not currently available, I can advise that in the three months since the introduction of the increased HAP rent limit rates, the rate of households housed through the scheme has more than doubled with some 20 homeless households now being housed through the enhanced HAP support on a weekly basis.

At this point the full HAP scheme is only available to all qualifying households in one of the four Dublin local authorities, South Dublin County Council. The full roll-out of the scheme to all remaining local authorities, including the remaining Dublin local authorities, is currently being planned. To ensure the successful delivery of HAP in the capital, a specific purpose HAP Implementation Dublin Working-Group has been established to plan and manage the roll-out which is scheduled for Q.1 2017.