Noel Grealish (Galway West, Independent)
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475. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government if a person who is on the rental accommodation scheme, RAS, can remain on the local authority housing waiting list or transfer list; if their years on the RAS can be recognised in view of the fact that they have no long term security of tenure while on the RAS scheme; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [33360/17]

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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The Housing Miscellaneous Provisions Act 2009, gives legislative recognition to rental accommodation availability agreements which underpin the Rental Accommodation Scheme (RAS) as a form of social housing support. Consequently, since 1 April 2011, RAS  tenants are now considered to be in receipt of social housing support and should not generally remain on housing waiting lists for new applicants for social housing.

Recognising that tenants housed through RAS prior to this change might have had reasonable expectations in regard to retaining access to traditional local authority rented accommodation, guidance issued from the Housing Agency in 2011 recommended that there should be a special transfer pathway for pre-2011 RAS tenants to other forms of social housing support. The arrangement effectively allowed these households to be designated as a ‘transfer’ applicant and to maintain their position for allocation as they had on the main waiting list.

All tenants allocated RAS accommodation post 1st April 2011 (and thus under the provisions of the Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2009) were informed at the time of offer and allocation, that because RAS is now a social housing support, their housing need is met and that they will no longer remain on the main social housing waiting list.

However, it is recommended that allocation schemes also provide a ‘transfer pathway’ for new RAS tenants ,whereby households in RAS have access to the transfer list in the same way as tenants in local authority accommodation.

Where a vacant property arises, it is a matter for individual housing authorities, in accordance with their allocation schemes, to determine whether the allocation is made to a household on the main waiting list, or to a transfer applicant, such as a household from RAS, and the method of such allocation. It is open to housing authorities to specify in their allocation schemes the proportion of allocations which will be reserved for transfers, and within this, how many may be reserved for households seeking transfers to other forms of social housing support.