I propose to take Questions Nos. 96 and 120 together.
The supplementary welfare allowance scheme, which is administered on behalf of my Department by the health boards, provides for the payment of a weekly or monthly supplement in respect of rent to eligible people in the State whose means are insufficient to meet their accommodation needs.
One of the conditions for receipt of rent supplement relates to the amount of rent a person may incur. Each health board sets a limit on the amount of rent that an applicant for rent supplement may incur, taking the household size and other relevant circumstances into account. This is to ensure that the rent is reasonable and that the health board is not subsidising the cost of overly large or overly expensive accommodation.
As the Deputies are aware, I introduced regulations on 22 November 2002 which provided for holding the maximum rent levels until the end of December 2003 at the values that had been set by the health boards at that time. Concern was expressed at the time that the new regulations could have an adverse impact on social welfare recipients' ability to secure accommodation in the private rented sector and could lead to people becoming homeless. In fact, there has been an increase of over 6,000 in the number of recipients since the regulations were introduced. This significant increase of over 11% in the number of rent supplement recipients since last November shows that the anticipated adverse impact did not occur.