Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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669. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government the way in which the 4,800 SCHEP funded homes listed on page115 of the budget 2019 expenditure report related to the other targets for build, acquisition, long-term leasing, RAS and HAP detailed in pages 114 and 115 of the report. [42301/18]

Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail)
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672. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government the budget for the social housing current expenditure programme in 2019. [42350/18]

Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail)
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673. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government the budget for the rental accommodation scheme in 2019. [42351/18]

Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail)
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675. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government the budget allocation for long-term leases in 2019. [42354/18]

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 669, 672, 673 and 675 together.

All three of the current expenditure funded schemes – the Rental Accommodation Scheme (RAS), the Housing Assistance Payment (HAP) and the Social Housing Current Expenditure Programme (SHCEP) - are critical components of the accelerated delivery of social housing envisaged under Rebuilding Ireland: Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness.

The annual cost of the three schemes to the exchequer is made up of the continuing cost of supporting the tenancies and contracts in place at the end of the previous year, and the additional cost of the new tenancies and contracts supported over the course of the year to which the allocation relates. The cost of the schemes in future years is therefore dependent on the number of new social housing homes and tenancies falling to be funded within each of the schemes and the rental or lease payments involved.

The Social Housing Current Expenditure Programme (SHCEP) is a funding programme that supports the delivery of social housing by providing financial support to local authorities and Approved Housing Bodies (AHBs) for the long term leasing of houses and apartments from private owners and developers.

The SHCEP budget funds the ongoing current costs of homes delivered using a variety of different delivery mechanisms, including properties built or acquired by AHBs using funding under the Capital Advance Leasing Facility (CALF) and leased to local authorities; properties leased on a longterm basis from private property owners by AHBs or local authorities, including properties secured through specific programmes such as the Repair and Leasing Scheme (RLS) and the Enhanced Leasing Scheme. Therefore, SHCEP is a complementary funding stream to a range of capital expenditure programmes like RLS, CALF and the Mortgage to Rent Scheme.

The 2019 budgetary provision for the SHCEP is €155 million which represents an increase of €40 million on the 2018 provision. This is expected to fund the ongoing cost of the existing social housing homes secured with support of the Programme at the end of 2018 which will amount to almost 14,000. In addition, over 4,800 new social housing homes, targeted for delivery across the build, acquisitions and leasing streams in 2019 are to be funded under the Programme.

The breakdown of the new social housing homes, by delivery stream, to be funded by SHCEP 2019 is set out in the following table.

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 through Rent Supplement.

€134.3 million is being provided to support RAS in 2019, and this funding will go towards supporting 600 additional RAS tenancies targeted to be achieved by local authorities in 2019, and the ongoing cost of supporting approximately 19,200 continuing RAS contracts expected to be in place at the end of 2018.

Funding of €422m is being made available for HAP under Budget 2019. This will provide for the continued support of existing HAP households and also enable the additional 16,760 households targeted under Rebuilding Ireland to be supported by HAP in 2019, as well as supporting the roll-out of the Homeless HAP Place Finder Support Service across the country.

The Homeless HAP Place Finder Service is now available to each of the 31 local authorities, with the options to pay deposits and advance rental payments for any households in emergency homeless accommodation, in order to secure accommodation via the HAP Scheme.