Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
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1277. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government the current number of households in Dublin city in receipt of the housing assistance payment. [33678/17]

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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The Housing Assistance Payment (HAP) is a flexible and immediate housing support that is now available to all eligible households throughout the State. There are currently just over 24,000 households having their housing needs met via HAP and some 18,000 separate landlords and agents currently in receipt of monthly HAP payments.

The nationwide roll-out of the HAP scheme was completed following its introduction on 1 March 2017 to the Dublin City, Fingal and Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown Local Authority areas.  HAP has been particularly successful in the South Dublin County Council (SDCC) area, where it has been available since 1 October 2014.

The Homeless Pilot of the HAP scheme has been operational since February 2015 across the four housing authorities in the Dublin Region, and is being implemented through the Dublin Region Homeless Executive (DRHE). The focus of this pilot scheme is to transition qualified households from emergency accommodation, including hotels, into private rented tenancies.

There are currently almost 4,000 active HAP tenancies set up by the four Dublin local authorities, including 1,600 homeless households set up by the DRHE.

A breakdown of the number of households supported by HAP in each local authority area at the end of Quarter 1 2017 is available on my Department's websitehttp://www.housing.gov.ie/housing/social-housing/social-and-affordble/overall-social-housing-provision. 

Quarter 2 data will be published on the website shortly.