John Brassil (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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1347. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government the spend on the rental accommodation scheme; the number of persons in receipt of the scheme, by county, in each of the years from 2015 to 2017 and to date in 2018, in tabular form; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [35887/18]

John Brassil (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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1349. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government the number of persons moved from local authority housing waiting lists onto the rental accommodation scheme, by county, in each of the years from 2015 to 2017 and to date in 2018, in tabular form; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [35890/18]

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 1347 and 1349 together.

The Rental Accommodation Scheme (RAS) introduced in 2005 placed responsibility on local authorities to meet the accommodation needs of people in receipt of Rent Supplement for 18 months or longer, and who are assessed as having a long-term housing need. RAS has provided a more structured, accommodation-based approach to the use of the private rented sector to meet long-term housing need, thereby eliminating dependence on temporary income support payments, i.e. rent supplement. Section 19 of the Housing Miscellaneous Provisions Act 2009 defines RAS as a social housing support.

The assessment of applications for social housing support, and management of the lists of qualified households, is the responsibility of the relevant local authority in accordance with the Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2009 and associated regulations. In the context of the assessment of individual applicants for social housing support, it is a matter for the local authority to determine the housing solution that best meets the needs of the applicant, while taking into account the resources and type of housing available to the authority. Once a household has been deemed eligible for social housing support, it is a matter for the local authority to examine the suite of social housing supports available, including the RAS scheme, to determine the most appropriate form of support for that household.

In the period since RAS commenced in 2005 to the end of March 2018, local authorities had transferred a total of 60,821 households from Rent Supplement to RAS and other social housing options. Of this number, 34,652 were housed directly under RAS. Based on the 2017 Summary of Social Housing Assessments (SSHA), the Department has set a figure of an additional 600 households nationally to transfer from Rent Supplement to RAS supported tenancies during 2018.

Data on transfers from Rent Supplement to RAS for 2015, broken down by individual local authority, is set out in the following table. Data for 2016, 2017 and Q1 2018, broken down by individual local authority, is available on my Department’s website at the following link: .

Data for the years 2015 to 2017 on the number and cost of tenancies funded under the RAS scheme, broken down by local authority, is also available at this link. As of 31 March 2018, there are 19,522 tenancies supported under RAS, details of which, broken down by local authority, are set out in the attached table. Expenditure on these tenancies during the period January to March 2018 was €13.78m. I have provided €134.3 million in Budget 2018 to support the cost of RAS and this funding will go towards supporting 600 additional RAS tenancies in 2018 and the ongoing cost of supporting continuing RAS contracts in place at the end of 2017.

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. With the introduction of the Housing Assistance Payment (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.

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