Tommy Broughan (Dublin Bay North, Independent)
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43. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government the number of persons on Dublin social housing waiting lists who have been relocated outside of Dublin in each of the years 2009 to 2018 and to date in 2019; the number located to each county; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [36518/19]

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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There is no formal relocation programme for social housing applicants from Dublin but my Department is working on plans to provide increased mobility to social housing applicants generally. There is already some mobility provided for in the larger urban areas and for HAP recipients.

Consideration is being given to the possibility of extending that mobility by expanding the numbers of areas that social housing applicants can apply for. The basic premise is that households in receipt of, or qualified for, social housing support in one local authority area could potentially transfer to, or be allocated, social housing in another local authority area.

The four Dublin local authorities already co-operate in arrangements that enable social housing applicants to apply for housing in one or two of the other Dublin authorities simultaneously. Similar arrangements apply in the two Cork and two Galway local authorities.

In addition, persons on social housing waiting lists who elect to take the Housing Assistance Payment (HAP) can source accommodation through HAP in any local authority area if their income is below the social housing income limit for the area concerned. As of June 2019, 4,455 HAP recipients had sourced their accommodation in a different local authority area to the authority of application and 483 of those were on the Dublin waiting lists but sourced accommodation outside of Dublin.

My Department is committed to the principle of increasing mobility for social housing applicants and I intend to bring proposals in this regard forward in due course.