Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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576. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government the number of persons in receipt of the housing assistance payment in each year since it was introduced by local authority; the annual figure spent for each county; the projected spend in 2019, in tabular form; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [10278/19]

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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The Housing Assistance Payment (HAP) is a flexible and immediate housing support that is available to all eligible households throughout the State. At the end of Quarter 4 2018, there were over 43,000 households having their housing needs met through HAP.  

HAP is funded through a combination of Exchequer funding and tenant differential rents.  Budget 2019 has increased the Exchequer funding for the HAP scheme to €422 million. This will allow 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.

Details on the number of tenancy setups and Exchequer funding for HAP from 2014 to 2018 are set out in the following table:

Limerick City and County Council provides a highly effective HAP transactional shared service on behalf of all local authorities. This HAP Shared Services Centre (SSC) manages all HAP related rental transactions for the tenant, local authority and landlord.  Accordingly, my Department does not recoup individual local authorities in respect of HAP rental payments in their administrative areas but rather recoups all landlord costs via the HAP SSC.

A breakdown of the number of households supported by HAP in each local authority area is available on my Department’s website at the following link:

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