Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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822.To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government if the Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1997 was intended to disallow a person on a probation bond from access to the social housing list; and if he will make a statement on the matter.[34733/24]

Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail)
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Applications for social housing support are assessed by the relevant local authority, in accordance with the eligibility and need criteria set down in section 20 of the Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2009 and the associated Social Housing Assessment Regulations 2011, as amended.

The oversight and management of the lists of qualified households awaiting accommodation, including the allocation and transfer of tenancies, is a matter for the relevant local authority in accordance with Sections 20 and 22 of the Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2009 and associated Social Housing Assessment and Allocation Regulations, respectively.

The application form for social housing support prescribed by the Social Housing Assessment Regulations 2011, as amended, requires applicants to provide details of any convictions under a number of specified statutes relating to anti-social behaviour and public order offences. Section 14 of the Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1997 provides that local authorities may refuse to allocate or defer allocation of a dwelling to a person if they consider the person is, or has been, engaged in anti-social behaviour, or if the allocation of a dwelling to that person would not be in the interest of good estate management.

Section 15 of the Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act, 1997 provides for a housing authority to request from another housing authority or a specified person, including a member of the Garda Síochána, information in relation to any person seeking a house from the authority or residing or proposing to reside at a house provided by the authority or whom the authority considers may be or may have been engaged in anti-social behaviour.

However, it should be stated that a conviction for one of these public order offences is not necessarily proof of anti-social behaviour as defined in the 1997 Act, this is a matter for determination by the local authority in each instance in the light of all relevant circumstances.