Written answers

Wednesday, 7 October 2020

Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection

Rent Supplement Scheme

Photo of Richard BrutonRichard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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171. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the number of new claimants of rent supplement which have come into payment since the Covid-19 pandemic commenced; and her plans to relax the stringent rules for withdrawal of the payment for persons considering returning to work by comparison with those that have been put on a housing assistance payment. [29182/20]

Photo of Heather HumphreysHeather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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Rent supplement continues to play a key role in supporting families and individuals in private rented accommodation, with the scheme currently supporting 19,984 active recipients.

Since the introduction of the Government’s Covid-19 emergency response in March, 10,125 applications for rent supplement have been approved. Of this number, 5,823 remain in payment.

The scheme provides short-term income support to eligible people living in private rented accommodation whose means are insufficient to meet their accommodation costs and who do not have accommodation available to them from any other source. The scheme ensures that those who were renting, but whose circumstances have changed due to temporary loss of employment or income, can continue to meet their rental commitments.

The overarching Covid-19 response in the case of rent supplement is to provide a flexible case-by-case solution for customers, providing temporary income support during the emergency for their housing costs. The Department’s current flexible rent supplement response has been extended to end-March 2021 and remains under review within the context of the overall Government response to the Covid-19 emergency.

Since the introduction of HAP, Rent Supplement continues to revert to its original role of providing short-term support to those who have become temporarily unemployed and require income support to meet their tenancy cost whilst they seek alternative employment. Rent supplement’s role, supporting those returning to work by way of income provision is not comparable to HAP, which provides long term housing to those who have verifiable long term housing needs.

I have no plans to alter rent supplement’s central goal of providing short term income support for those who have been made temporarily unemployed, with HAP being available from local authorities to those who have long term housing needs.

I trust this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.

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