Niamh Smyth (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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420. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government is the position regarding a tenant that is being moved to the housing assistance payment, HAP, scheme but wishes to remain on the social housing list for a home; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [13135/17]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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The Government’s long-term approach is for Rent Supplement to be replaced with the Housing Assistance Payment (HAP) for households with a long-term housing need, although Rent Supplement will continue to be available for people who need short-term support in meeting their housing costs.

Upon commencement of the HAP scheme in a local authority administrative area, the availability of Rent Supplement support is altered and in general Rent Supplement will no longer be available to any new applicant households that have an identified long-term housing need. Under Rebuilding Ireland, it is envisaged that all long-term Rent Supplement recipients will be transferred to the HAP scheme by 2020.

The Department of Social Protection may request long-term recipients of Rent Supplement to contact their local authority in order to have their housing need assessed, which could potentially allow them to access HAP. Local authorities are working closely with local Department of Social Protection staff to transfer eligible households from the Rent Supplement scheme to HAP. The phased process of transferring households from Rent Supplement to HAP, which only begins after the scheme has been introduced and established in a local authority area for some months, is carefully managed in order to ensure that no gaps in support arise within the transfer process.

Following the commencement of the provisions in the Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2014, HAP is considered to be a social housing support and consequently, households are not eligible to remain on the main housing waiting list. However, acknowledging that households on the waiting list who avail of HAP might have expectations that they would receive an allocated form of social housing support, Ministerial Directions were issued to ensure that, should they so choose, HAP tenants can avail of a move to other forms of social housing support through a transfer list. With the completion of the HAP rollout and the ending of the scheme’s pilot phase, I recently signed a Ministerial Direction instructing local authorities to continue to offer HAP tenants access to other forms of social housing through the transfer list. This refreshed direction ensures that following completion of the HAP pilot phase, HAP tenants still get all the benefits of HAP and are no less likely to get a different form 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. The setting of such schemes is a reserved function of the local authority and as such is a matter for the elected members. I understand that the majority of HAP households do avail of the option to be placed on a transfer list. Since its statutory commencement in December 2016, some 240 households (at the end of December 2016) have transferred from the HAP scheme to other forms of social housing support.

Further information in relation to the HAP scheme is available on www.hap.ie.