Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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450. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government his plans to amend the new housing assistant payment website www.hap.ie to make it explicit that families that take part in the HAP scheme can be assured they will not lose their place on the housing list, in view of the fact that the absence of this information is giving rise to confusion; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [13679/17]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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A dedicated Housing Assistance Payment (HAP) website,www.hap.ie, was launched on 1 March 2017 to coincide with the completion of the nationwide roll-out of the HAP scheme, with the introduction of the scheme to the administrative areas of Dublin City Council, Fingal County Council and Dun Laoghaire Rathdown County Council. www.hap.ieprovides a single national point of information on the HAP scheme for both landlords and tenants, before directing potential tenants to the relevant local authority.

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.

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 issued during the pilot phase of the scheme to ensure that, should they so choose, HAP tenants could avail of a move to other forms of social housing support through a transfer list. With the completion of the HAP roll-out 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 September 2014, some 240 households (at the end of December 2016) have transferred from the HAP scheme to other forms of social housing support.

The information on www.hap.iereflects the legislation and states that any HAP tenant who wants to access other social housing supports, may do so through the transfer system as operated by their respective local authority.