Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Cork South Central, Sinn Fein)
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258. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government the guidance his Department has provided to local authorities regarding the circumstances in which a person in receipt of HAP and who is on a transfer list for the local authority will be housed by that local authority; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [36866/16]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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On 16 December 2014, a statutory direction was issued to all authorities involved in the Housing Assistance Payment (HAP) scheme, instructing them to take the necessary steps to ensure that households benefiting from HAP can avail of a move to other forms of social housing support, should they wish to do so, through a transfer option. Local authorities were also directed that HAP recipients who apply to go on the transfer list should get full credit for the time they spent on the waiting list and be placed on the transfer list with no less favourable terms than if they had remained on the waiting list.

It is ultimately up to the household to choose if they wish to be placed on a local authority’s transfer list, and I understand that the majority of HAP households do avail of this option. As of the start of November 2016, over 190 households across the country have transferred from the HAP scheme to other forms of social housing support.

The practical operation of transfer lists is a matter for each local authority to manage, on the basis of their scheme of letting priorities.