Written answers
Tuesday, 5 July 2022
Department of Housing, Planning, and Local Government
Housing Policy
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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219. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government if local authorities have received any advice or guidance from his Department in recent years on the length of time a person should be living in a local authority area to meet the eligibility conditions for social housing support; the details of this advice; and the basis of the five-year rule in many allocation schemes. [35476/22]
Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail)
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The assessment of households for social housing support is the responsibility of the relevant local authority in accordance with the Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2009 and associated Social Housing Assessment Regulations, which set down a standard procedure for assessing applicants for social housing support.
A household may apply for support to one housing authority only. This may be the authority for the area in which the household normally resides or with which it has a local connection. In determining whether a household has a local connection with its area, a local authority has regard to whether a household member has lived in the area for a continuous five-year period at any time in the past.
The regulations do not require local authorities to impose a minimum period of residence prior to an application for support. My Department issued a clarification to local authorities in 2013 regarding normal residence and local connection criteria. It advised, where a household resides in a local authority’s area, it does not need a local connection to apply to that authority for support. There has been no change to this advice recently.
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