Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Social Democrats)
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89. To ask the Minister for Social Protection if he will address the serious anomaly for lone parents in receipt of maintenance payments and also rent supplement in that they receive no benefit from maintenance payments due to the means test rules operating for rent supplement; if his attention has been drawn to the fact that in some cases a parent in these circumstances may suffer a net loss due to receiving maintenance payments; and the way he will address this issue. [32272/16]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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Rent supplement plays a vital role in housing families and individuals, with the scheme currently supporting some 50,700 recipients for which the Government has provided €267 million for in 2016.

Rent supplement is a statutory means tested scheme which is payable at differentiated rates of payment taking into account the applicant's means and their family's accommodation requirements. Rent supplement is normally calculated to ensure that a person, after the payment of rent, has an income equal to the rate of supplementary welfare allowance (SWA) appropriate to their family circumstances less a weekly minimum contribution which recipients are required to pay from their own resources. The weekly minimum contribution is €30 for a single adult household and €40 for coupled households. Many recipients pay more than this amount because recipients are also required, subject to income disregards, to contribute any additional assessable means that they have over and above the appropriate SWA rate towards their accommodation costs.

For rent supplement, maintenance payments of up to €95.23 per week are assessed in determining the appropriate rate payable. Where a person has weekly maintenance payments of more than €95.23, the first €75 a week together with 25% of any additional maintenance above €75 can be disregarded for means assessment purposes. Any changes to the conditions of the rent supplement scheme can only be considered in a budgetary context.

The Department's overall strategic policy direction is to return rent supplement to its original purpose, short-term income support, by transferring responsibility for persons with long-term housing needs to the local authorities under the Housing Assistance Payment (HAP).