10 May 2006

Environment

Numbers Receiving Rent Supplement

Ciarán Cuffe asked the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government the number of private housing units which are currently occupied by people on rental supplement, the number which have been inspected by local authorities with a view to their taking over the direct payment to landlords since the announcement of 7 July 2004; the number of those inspected which have been approved by local authorities for long-term payments; the number of units which have not been approved; the principle reasons for the failure to grant approval in those cases; and if he will make a statement on the matter.

Minister of State at the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government (Mr. N. Ahern): Under the Rental Accommodation Scheme (RAS), local authorities are providing accommodation for certain recipients of SWA rent supplement who have been assessed as having a long-term housing need. At end March 2006, 60,522 households were in receipt of rent supplement. The great majority of these are accommodated in private rented accommodation with the remainder residing in accommodation provided by the Voluntary and Cooperative Housing Sector.

At the end of April 2006, local authorities had inspected 754 units of private rented accommodation for the RAS and had entered into contracts for 57 units. The main problems encountered by authorities seeking to transfer tenants to the RAS is the poor quality of some of the private rented accommodation, tenancies not being registered with the Private Residential Tenancies Board, households living in overcrowded conditions and delays in landlords producing evidence of their tax affairs being in order.