Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 10 June 2014
83. Deputy Joan Collins asked the Minister for Social Protection the mechanism her Department has in place to respond to a family or persons facing eviction from private rented accommodation because a landlord is increasing the rent. [24276/14]
View answer84. Deputy Willie O'Dea asked the Minister for Social Protection when she will review the caps on the rent supplement schemes; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [24273/14]
View answerThe Minister is aware there are now more families being forced to become homeless because of the increase in private rents around the city, particularly in my area, Dublin 12, where rents have gone up by some 14% to 16% in the past six months. We are trying to manage a situation where people are coming in to us, saying their rents have been increased and they cannot get anywhere else because landlords are not accepting rent allowance, and have now gone so far as to put "No rent allowance" or "Work reference only allowed" on e-mails when looking to accept tenants. I want to know what procedure the Department has in place to deal with those issues.
I propose to take Questions Nos. 83 and 84 together.
The Government has provided over €344 million for the rent supplement scheme in 2014, the purpose of which 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.
There are approximately 76,000 rent supplement recipients, of whom over 50,000 have been in receipt of a payment for more than 18 months. Maximum rent limits are generally reviewed every 18 months. The most recent review was completed in June 2013, with revised rent limits introduced on 17 June 2013. Despite pressures on the social protection budget, the last review saw rent limits increase in line with market rents in some areas, including Dublin and Galway. with Dublin limits increasing by a weighted average of 9%.
A new rent limit review has commenced within the Department and will feed into the budgetary process. This review will involve a comprehensive analysis of information from a range of sources, including rental tenancies registered with the Private Residential Tenancies Board, the Central Statistics Office rental indices and websites advertising rental properties. In this regard, the current difficulties in the rental market and with rent supplement relate to a shortage of supply of suitable properties. I am concerned that raising rent limits as such is not the solution to the problem. It is likely to add to further rental inflation and impact not only on rent supplement recipients but also on many lower income workers and students who are paying their rents out of their private resources.
The Government has recently launched its construction strategy with the aim of increasing supply generally. In addition, the Minister of State at the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government, Deputy Jan O'Sullivan, has set out a very clear objective for local authorities to release vacant local authority housing and NAMA units are also coming on stream. I am fully aware that in some areas, particularly urban areas, prospective tenants, including those seeking access to rent supplement, are finding it increasingly difficult to secure accommodation owing to reduced availability. We have made arrangements to allow customers of the scheme who are facing difficulties to bring their situation to the attention of staff in the Department's community welfare service, CWS, who have considerable experience in dealing with customers and will continue to make every effort to ensure their accommodation needs are met. Staff have discretionary powers to award a supplement for rental purposes in exceptional cases where it appears the circumstances of the case merit it.
The CWS, including through its work in the homeless persons unit and the asylum seekers and new communities unit, works closely with local authorities and other stakeholders to facilitate homeless persons in accessing private rented accommodation. Where possible, this ensures people are diverted away from homeless services and towards community-based supports. In addition and in view of the current supply difficulties, the Dublin Region Homeless Executive, in conjunction with the Dublin local authorities and voluntary organisations, has agreed a protocol with the Department in order that families at risk of losing existing private rented accommodation can have more timely and appropriate interventions made on their behalf. These operational arrangements are being put in place and it is expected that the initiative will be launched towards the middle of this month.
Additional information not given on the floor of the House.
The Department's strategic policy direction is to transfer responsibility for recipients of rent supplement with a long-term housing need to local authorities under the housing assistance payment, HAP, scheme. Officials are working closely with those in the lead Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government in piloting the HAP scheme in Limerick with further roll-out to selected local authorities during the year.
I put it to the Minister that it is not a question of supply but of landlords increasing rents to a level that people receiving rent allowance cannot pay. It is also due to many landlords specifying "no rent allowance" or "work references only". That is a form of apartheid towards unemployed people who need rent allowance to secure private rented accommodation. I am glad to hear the Minister defining clearly the intervention of community welfare officers because I have found the approach to be ad hoc in terms of who to approach to deal with the matter.
For example, the bank has taken over the house of a girl from Tallaght who contacted me. She has five children and the local authority cannot provide her with housing. She has been told to move out of the house by 28 July, but she has nowhere to go. She is trying everywhere for accommodation. If the Minister could e-mail the information she provided for the House earlier to every Deputy and community welfare officers, it would help.
If the Deputy makes the details of the case to which she referred in Tallaght available to me, I will pass them to the community welfare service in Tallaght with the permission of the family she is dealing with because the objective has to be to keep families in homes. The practice of landlords of indicating through websites that rent allowance is not acceptable is not helpful. On the other hand, when one website took down the statement, a number of agencies dealing with people in accessing rented accommodation did not believe it was helpful. There is, therefore, a slight difference of opinion. I do not like to see such a blanket exclusion, but agencies want to know if a landlord is interested in somebody who may be in receipt of rent supplement.
The Minister has established a protocol with community welfare officers in the Dublin region. While I fully appreciate this, I remind the House that there is a country outside Dublin and that we have similar problems in Limerick and every other urban area. Will the Minister give us a commitment that she will consider establishing a similar protocol in other areas such as Limerick where there are pressing problems? Perhaps she is correct that the solution is not simply to increase the flow of State money to landlords. The figures I have suggest the top 20 earning landlords last year received €5 million from the State in sums ranging from €180,000 to €578,000 to an individual at the top of the scale. That is one side of the story, but, on the other hand, the difficulty is that 76,000 people are in receipt of rent allowance and that 90,000 are waiting for social housing. My experience in Limerick of rent supplement is that the caps are no longer realistic relative to the rents being charged. Up to now, there was a nod and a wink scenario whereby a tenant would pay the landlord under the counter, but even that arrangement which is illegal can no longer apply because rent supplement recipients cannot afford the increased rents. The Minister has said she has no evidence of this practice, but I have plenty of it. We are facing an imminent problem. I am dealing with people who will become homeless in the next few weeks. What can they do?
With regard to the position in Dublin, the community welfare service, the homeless persons unit, the HSE's asylum seekers and new communities unit, Departments and agencies dealing with housing, the local authorities and other stakeholders are coming together to facilitate homeless people in accessing private rented accommodation. The community welfare service in Limerick provided a fantastic service during the recent flooding in the city for people who had, unfortunately, been flooded by setting up special clinics, including on the estates particularly affected by flooding.
If the Deputy has an interest in seeing a similar extension of services in Limerick, I will refer back to him with a specific response on the situation in Limerick.
That service should be set up where it is needed throughout the country. Even if it is not necessary now, it will be needed very soon. This is not just a phenomenon in Dublin; it has happened in Cork and other urban areas. The Minister should immediately instruct community welfare officers and inform local representatives and the local authorities that if a problem arises where somebody could find himself or herself homeless within a period of time, they should step in. We are advising people who approach us to hold on to the houses they are in because if they have nowhere else to go, they must stay there until they receive some assistance or find somewhere else to live. If we do not build social houses, this will be a tsunami, as Fr. Peter McVerry said. If there was a tsunami tomorrow, we would be building houses immediately to try to replace the ones lost. These are people who are losing the roof over their heads; therefore, there must be a more urgent response throughout the country.
Community welfare officers in Limerick did a tremendous job during the flooding. I would appreciate it if the Minister referred back to me as quickly as possible as I have an interest in this issue. The difficulty is that I do not know what advice to give. I will take a leaf from Deputy Joan Collins's book and advise them to simply stay in the house, even if they cannot afford to pay the increased rent. We are facing imminent problems of homelessness.
I have a question about the move to the housing assistance payment, HAP. The Government has been promising this move for some time, whereby responsibility will be transferred from the Department of Social Protection to the local authorities. The scheme is part of the programme for Government and was supposed to be piloted in Limerick. I checked with the local authority in Limerick yesterday. The Minister has said there are 76,000 people in receipt of rent allowance. Limerick is the only place in which the HAP scheme has been initiated and only 40 of the 76,000 have transferred to it. That is approximately one half of 1% and we are 75% into the lifetime of the Government. When will the HAP scheme take off in a realistic way? Forty people out of 76,000 at this stage is pathetic.
The Deputy has extensive experience of membership of the Government and during the long period in which Fianna Fáil was in government there was much talk but never any action on this important issue. If people are renting and likely to be renting in the long term, our aim and objective are to ensure a family has secure long-term accommodation. That is the best and most stable solution for them. It has taken a significant amount of work and I am very grateful to the local authorities in Limerick which have undertaken pioneering work in this regard, as they have in respect of Gateway, to install systems which are new to local authorities. To refer back to the comments made by Deputy Joan Collins, local authorities have housing departments and specific expertise in assessing the suitability of accommodation and so forth. The Department of Social Protection which is more of a payments agency would not have the level of resources or skills local authorities have related to housing.
Staff in the community welfare service have discretionary powers to award a supplement for rental purposes in exceptional cases where it appears that the circumstances of the case so warrant it. These discretionary powers are available when dealing with, for example, people who are homeless or at risk of losing their home.
That is what is happening in terms of what has been established in Dublin, where there is co-ordination among officials in different agencies dealing with those who are homeless or at risk of homelessness. In Limerick, those officials have the same discretionary powers. However, I will speak to the Minister of State, Deputy Jan O'Sullivan, about co-operation with Limerick City and County Council and whether arrangements there could mirror those in Dublin.
