Peadar Tóibín
Question:86. Deputy Peadar Tóibín asked the Minister for Social Protection if she will raise the cap on rent allowance in view of increasing rents throughout certain parts of the country. [5760/14]
View answerWednesday, 5 February 2014
Questions (86)
Written answers
The purpose of the rent supplement scheme is to provide short-term income support to assist with reasonable accommodation costs of eligible people living in private rented accommodation who are unable to provide for their accommodation costs from their own resources and who do not have accommodation available to them from another source. There are currently approximately 79,000 rent supplement recipients for which the Government has provided over €344 million for 2014.
Revised rent limits under the rent supplement scheme have been implemented with effect from Monday 17 June 2013 and will be in place until 31 December 2014. The rent limits were determined following an extensive review of the private rental market based on the most up-to-date data available. The purpose of the rent limit review is to ensure availability of accommodation for rent supplement tenancies and not to provide rent supplement tenants with access to all housing in all areas while ensuring that maximum value for money for tenants and the taxpayer is achieved.
During the rent limit review, the Department used information from rental tenancies registered with the Private Residential Tenancies Board (PRTB) to analyse actual rental costs in each county across the country. The Department also used publicly available data sources including the Central Statistics Office rental indices, the Daft.ie Rental Report and websites, advertising rental properties to ascertain both the market trends and the current asking prices for one, two and three bedroom properties.
There have been increases in the maximum rent limits in Dublin and Galway while there have been some reductions across a number of rural counties reflecting the conditions in the rental markets in those counties. Separate to the county limits, higher rent limits have been provided for in North Kildare and Bray areas.
Officials in the Department continue to examine the impact of the rent limits on those who claim rent supplement but at this stage I have no plans to revise the existing rent limits.