Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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247. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government if he is considering or has decided to suspend the social housing applicant file for five years for persons who have refused two offers of accommodation; and if so, the basis on which this decision was made. [8548/19]

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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The current position in relation to the refusal by households of offers of social housing dwellings is set down in Regulation 12 of the Social Housing Allocation Regulations 2011, made under section 22 of the Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2009.

Under Regulation 12, a household that refuses two reasonable offers of such tenancies in any twelve-month period, other than an offer made under the Choice Based Letting (CBL) procedure, will not receive any further offers from any local authority for a period of one year from the date of the second refusal. An offer is deemed to be reasonable where the dwelling concerned would, in the opinion of the authority, meet the housing needs of the household and, except in an emergency, is located in an area of choice specified by the household.

My Department regularly engages with the local authority sector on this and other social housing policy matters. The refusal of offers can have a serious impact on the administrative process in local authorities and can prolong the period for re-letting of homes, lead to a loss of revenue through non-rental and is ultimately an inefficient use of the social housing stock, as well as local authority resources.

For these reasons, it is my intention to amend the regulations to provide that a household that refuses two reasonable offers in any twelve-month period, other than an offer made under the CBL procedure, will not receive any further offers from any local authority for a period of five years. The latter period is not subsequently reckonable for the purposes of determining the household’s relative priority for another social housing tenancy.