Fionntán Ó Súilleabháin (Wicklow-Wexford, Sinn Fein)
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160. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government the supports available to people awaiting a division of assets, for example sale of a jointly owned home, through the courts for a legal separation/divorce who require social housing; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [64244/25]

James Browne (Wexford, 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, as amended, and the associated Social Housing Assessment Regulations 2011, as amended.

A household shall be ineligible for social housing support if that household has alternative accommodation it could reasonably be expected to use to meet its housing need. However, where an applicant for social housing support owns accommodation occupied by a spouse, from whom they are formally separated or divorced, a deed of separation is sufficient to set aside this ineligibility ground. It is not necessary to await judicial separation or divorce to get a decision on social housing support in these cases.

Local authorities may provide such households with social housing support under the Rental Accommodation Scheme (RAS) or the Housing Assistance Payment (HAP) scheme until ownership of the family home is resolved in a formal separation or divorce settlement.

Support in these circumstances will be reviewed by the local authority at prescribed intervals and the household will not be able to transfer to other forms of social housing support while ownership of the family home remains to be determined. However, where the household ultimately qualifies for the full range of social housing supports, the length of time the household was supported under RAS or HAP will be reckonable for the purposes of determining the household’s relative priority for a transfer to local authority social housing.