Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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607. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government his Department's new HAP tenancy targets for 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021, respectively, in tabular form. [43833/17]

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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608. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government his Department's new RAS tenancy targets for 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021, respectively, in tabular form. [43834/17]

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 608 and 607 together.

The Rental Accommodation Scheme (RAS) is a social housing support introduced to cater for the accommodation needs of persons who are in receipt of long-term rent supplement. In general, households with a housing need who are in receipt of rent supplement for more than 18 months are considered for RAS.

RAS remains a significant part of the suite of social housing options available to local authorities and to those who are assessed as being in need of housing support. 618 of the 1,000 new RAS transfers targeted under Rebuilding Ireland in 2017, had been completed by end of August 2017.  With the introduction of HAP to all local authority areas, the availability of Rent Supplement has changed and is generally no longer available to households with a long-term housing need. This change reduces significantly the numbers of households entering rent supplement support. Equally, as the transfers of existing rent supplement recipients with a housing need to HAP accelerates, the numbers of long term rent supplement recipients eligible for RAS will decline as will RAS transfers.

The following table sets out the annual target for the number of additional households to be transferred from Rent Supplement into new RAS tenancies as set out in Rebuilding Ireland and the annual targets for additional households to receive HAP support in each of those years.