Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE)
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1105. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the number of persons who have been cut-off rent supplement in each of the past five years. [39329/21]

Heather 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 supporting 17,711 active recipients at the end of June 2021.

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.

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. The main driver for rent supplement claims closing over the last five years has been the on-going transfer of long term rent supplement tenancies to HAP.

All of my Department’s schemes, are subject to on-going control reviews and eligibility checks. The main reason for rent supplement claims closing over the past five years, (some 35%,ofclaim closures) was due to customers changing address and establishing new rent supplement tenancies. A further 27% were closed as customers transferred to HAP and other social housing options; and 15% were closed as customers regained full-time employment. Approximately15% of the closures arose due to outstanding documentation or signatures not being provided in a reasonable timeframe; and the remaining 8% of claims were closed due to the customer not qualifying for the scheme at the point of application, or upon review. For those claims closed upon review this would generally be due to the customer regaining full-time employment. In all cases, were a claim is closed the customer can re-apply or can appeal the decision.

Tabular statement 1 - provides details of the number of rent supplement claims closed in: 2016; 2017; 2018; 2019; and January to end of November 2020.

Tabular statement 2 - provides details of the number of rent supplement recipients at the end of each month for the period December 2020 to June 2021.

Detailed statistics on the number of rent supplement claims closed for the period from end of November 2020 to date are not available.

Table 1 - Number of Rent Supplement Closed Claims

Table 2 - Number of Rent Supplement recipients at the end of each month for the period December 2020 to June 2021.

I trust this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.