Written answers

Thursday, 28 February 2019

Department of Housing, Planning, and Local Government

Local Authority Housing Eligibility

Photo of Peadar TóibínPeadar Tóibín (Meath West, Sinn Fein)
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223. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government if a family in receipt of RAS post-2011 can have their names added to the social housing local authority waiting list (details supplied). [10041/19]

Photo of Eoghan MurphyEoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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The Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2009 gives legislative recognition to rental accommodation availability agreements which underpin the Rental Accommodation Scheme (RAS), as a form of social housing support. Consequently, since 1 April 2011, RAS tenants are now considered to be in receipt of social housing support and should not generally remain on housing waiting lists for new applicants for social housing.

Recognising that tenants housed through RAS prior to this change might have had reasonable expectations in regard to retaining access to traditional local authority rented accommodation, guidance issued from the Housing Agency in 2011 recommended that there should be a special transfer pathway for pre-2011 RAS tenants to other forms of social housing support. The arrangement effectively allowed these households to be designated as a ‘transfer’ applicant and to maintain their position for allocation as they had on the main waiting list.

All tenants allocated RAS accommodation post 1st April 2011 (and thus under the provisions of the Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2009) were informed at the time of offer and allocation, that because RAS is now a social housing support, their housing need is met and that they will no longer remain on the main social housing waiting list.

However, it is recommended that allocation schemes also provide a ‘transfer pathway’ for new RAS tenants ,whereby households in RAS have access to the transfer list in the same way as tenants in local authority accommodation.

Where a vacant property arises, it is a matter for individual housing authorities, in accordance with their allocation schemes, to determine whether the allocation is made to a household on the main waiting list, or to a transfer applicant, such as a household from RAS, and the method of such allocation. It is open to housing authorities to specify in their allocation schemes the proportion of allocations which will be reserved for transfers, and within this, how many may be reserved for households seeking transfers to other forms of social housing support.

Photo of Eoin Ó BroinEoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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224. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government the status of the review of the income thresholds for social housing eligibility; and the timeline for the completion of the review and the possible introduction of new thresholds. [10045/19]

Photo of Eoghan MurphyEoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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The Social Housing Assessment Regulations 2011 prescribe maximum net income limits for each local authority, in different bands according to the area concerned, with income being defined and assessed according to a standard Household Means Policy.

The income bands and the authority area assigned to each band were based on an assessment of the income needed to provide for a household's basic needs, plus a comparative analysis of the local rental cost of housing accommodation across the country. It is important to note that the limits introduced at that time also reflected a blanket increase of €5,000 introduced prior to the new system coming into operation, in order to broaden the base from which social housing tenants are drawn, both promoting sustainable communities and also providing a degree of future-proofing.

As part of the broader social housing reform agenda, a review of income eligibility for social housing supports in each local authority area is underway. The Housing Agency is continuing to carry out the detailed statistical work, which will underpin this review, on behalf of my Department.

The review will also have regard to current initiatives being brought forward in terms of affordability and cost rental and will be completed when the impacts of these parallel initiatives have been considered.

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