Pauline Tully (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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282. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government the details of the HAP spend on landlord payments from 2016 to 2020; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [27932/21]

Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail)
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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 end Q4 2020 there were nearly 60,000 households in receipt of HAP and over 33,520 separate landlords and agents providing accommodation to households supported by the scheme.

In respect of the provision of HAP funding, 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.

Data in relation to the number of active HAP tenancies and funding provided by the State in 2019 and 2020, broken down by local authority area, can be found on my Department's website at this link:

www.gov.ie/en/collection/6060e-overall-social-housing-provision/#housing-assistance-payment.

This funding represents the portion paid by my Department after receipt of the differential rent which is paid by the tenant to the local authority. It does not include administration costs related to the Scheme.

The overall cost of supporting the HAP Scheme to the Exchequer for the period 2016-2020 is outlined in the table below: