I propose to take Questions Nos. 83 and 97 together.
There are currently over 91,600 tenants benefiting from a rent supplement payment — an increase of 24% since the end of 2008. Over 33,000 of recipients have been receiving payment of rent supplement for 18 months or more.
The Rental Accommodation Scheme (RAS), which was introduced in 2004, gives local authorities specific responsibility for meeting the longer term housing needs of people receiving rent supplement for 18 months or more. Details of these cases are notified regularly by the Department to the local authorities. Local authorities meet the housing needs of these individuals through a range of approaches including the traditional range of social housing options, the voluntary housing sector and, in particular, RAS.
Latest figures from the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government (DoEHLG) indicate that to date, local authorities have transferred 12,260 rent supplement cases to RAS units. Housing authorities have also transferred a further 10,630 recipients to other social housing options, a total of almost 22,900 transfers between the end of 2005 and the end of September 2009. Almost 7,000 recipients were transferred in 2008.
While progress in relation to RAS was initially slower than expected, the pace of delivery has improved significantly, and in 2009 a target has been set of transferring an additional 7,000 households from rent supplement of which almost 5,000 transfers have been achieved.
In addition to this official target, due to the numbers of unsold affordable stock around the country, an opportunity has been created to make use of some of these properties for RAS and it is expected that there may be an opportunity to achieve further transfers.
The changes made in Budget 2009 to better align the minimum weekly contribution required from tenants under the rent supplement scheme with that under the RAS should also encourage more people to take up RAS offers.
The Department continues to work closely with the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government in ensuring that RAS meets its objective of catering for those on long term rent supplementation while enabling rent supplement to return to its original role of a short-term income support.