Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 5 October 2016
17. Deputy Thomas P. Broughan asked the Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government the current uptake of the housing assistance payment, HAP, scheme; if he will report on difficulties this scheme is facing; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [28433/16]
View answer32. Deputy Barry Cowen asked the Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government his views on how the restriction under HAP, whereby recipients are taken off the normal social housing waiting list and placed on a transfer list, is discouraging persons from taking up the scheme. [28632/16]
View answerAs the Minister is aware, the core problem with the operation of HAP, certainly in the Dublin region, is the great reluctance of families to take up the housing assistance payment because of the insecurity of the three-year tenure. They are often families who had been in private rented accommodation with rent supplement and had then effectively been evicted, became homeless and, like numerous people I represent, may have been homeless for a year or two. The Minister now wishes to put them back into insecure accommodation again. Can the Minister report on the working of the HAP implementation group in Dublin, whether he has met it and what kind of numbers are involved? Is the Minister's entire plan of relying on the private sector in respect of this area not completely misconceived?
I propose to take Questions Nos. 17 and 32 together.
Approximately 13,600 households are currently being supported by the housing assistance payment scheme across 19 local authority areas in which the scheme is operational, including eligible homeless households under the homeless HAP pilot scheme managed by the Dublin Region Homeless Executive, DRHE, which I met just before Question Time began, for all four local authorities in the Dublin region. On average, approximately 224 additional households have been supported by HAP each week during 2016 and this figure continues to rise with 362 households commencing support under the scheme this week. HAP will be rolled out in nine more local authority areas before the end of 2016, with the remaining three Dublin authorities coming on stream towards the end of the first quarter of 2017. This will complete the full roll-out of the scheme.
The phased nature of the HAP roll-out has allowed for significant learning in the operation of the scheme. In this way, new HAP authorities have benefited from the experience of those authorities where the scheme has been operational longest. The HAP practitioners group, which is made up of local authority staff and was established following a review of HAP governance structures earlier this year, meets regularly to discuss issues or opportunities they identify to improve the operation of the scheme. My Department continues to work with key stakeholders, like the HAP practitioners group, who also are represented at the HAP project board to ensure the scheme's operation is as effective and efficient as possible.
As for HAP and social housing waiting lists, local authorities have been directed that HAP recipients who apply to go on the transfer list should get full credit for the time they spent on the waiting list and be placed on the transfer list with no less favourable terms than if they had remained on the waiting list. In practice, housing authorities inform HAP recipients in writing of their entitlement to apply to go on the transfer list when they are approved for HAP. As of mid-September 2016, more than 160 households have transferred from the scheme to other forms of social housing support.
In general, I am very satisfied with how the HAP scheme is operating and I consider it to be a key vehicle for meeting housing need, particularly in the immediate term, and for fulfilling the ambitions of the Rebuilding Ireland plan.
I cannot see how the Minister can be very satisfied. I regularly get letters for people I have been representing in which they are told Dublin City Council is pleased to confirm the household in question is eligible for HAP and should contact the place finder service. People then try but fail to get accommodation under it and the place finder service established by Dublin City Council does not appear to interact directly and vigorously with landlords on behalf of people who wish to become tenants. The Minister has just mentioned that people go off the housing list and on to a transfer list. On the Minister's watch, we are just passing the milestone of 1,000 households being homeless this very minute. The Minister is responsible for housing and the numbers are rising day after day and week after week. Six or seven months ago when he took up this job, the Minister told Members he would act vigorously to deal with it and sort it out. It has not been sorted and many children and families remain homeless. As the Minister is aware, the problem about HAP is that people do not wish to go-----
Thank you, Deputy.
Perhaps after ten years in private rented accommodation and a number of years being homeless, the Minister wishes them to return to insecure accommodation and to go off the housing list.
The time is up, Deputy.
It is just a ridiculous situation. In the Dublin region, the Minister does not have a solution.
Hear, hear.
I am unsure what the Deputy is proposing. Does he suggest we would be in a better position if we did not have HAP?
I suggested the Minister should go and build houses.
No, Deputy, let me answer.
Excuse me, Deputy, please let the Minister answer.
I suggest the Minister should-----
We are building houses.
-----equip the Dublin local authorities to directly build houses.
Let me answer the Deputy's question.
Deputy, please take your seat.
No more schemes-----
Yes, and that is exactly-----
-----no more rapid build-----
Deputy, please take your seat.
-----no more public private partnerships.
The Deputy has a magic pen.
Go out and build the houses. In many parts of the constituency-----
Deputy, please take your seat.
-----I am proud to represent, families would happily live in them. Acting Chairman, he is the responsible Minister.
You have made your point, Deputy, take your seat and allow the Minister respond and to answer the question.
I am glad we have-----
I know what I would have been doing if I was Minister for housing but the Minister is not taking action.
At least have the manners to listen to the Chair. If you are not going to listen to the Minister, please listen to the Chair. Now resume your seat.
I am glad we now have the Deputy on the record as saying "no more rapid build". You do not want us to deliver-----
I do not want it.
Minister, will you please address the Chair and not the Deputy directly?
I do not want timber-framed houses.
They are not timber-framed houses.
I want quickly-built houses for the people who are in homeless accommodation tonight.
Deputy, I will move on to the next question unless you resume your seat now.
The Deputy has plenty of criticisms but no suggestions to make.
I made suggestions.
You will have your minute in a second, Deputy. If you interject again, I will not give you any more time on it; I am moving on.
We are delivering a lot of new social houses and are doing that as quickly as is physically possible. Moreover, we will do it in a way that learns from the mistakes of the past in respect of the need for mixed-tenure developments and so on. I note HAP has not even been rolled out in Dublin; the homeless HAP project has been rolled out.
Yes, I know.
This is just a cover for privatisation.
I did warn you, Deputy, and I will move on to the next question if you are going to continue interjecting.
The Deputy is judging HAP before it even has been introduced to Dublin City Council. It is a joke. Thus far this year, approximately 550 families and individuals have got secure tenancies under the homeless HAP project, which certainly is a great deal better than the alternatives that are available for them. Most of the HAP schemes are not on three-year tenancies. Some of them are for five years, others are for ten years and some are even negotiating 20-year tenancies. With respect, the Deputy should do his homework.
I did my homework. Incidentally, the Minister is aware that I sent him a detailed briefing of what I would like to do, starting with the declaration of a housing emergency. I ask the Minister to give some attention to the issue of the place finder service and to assisting people who are in homeless accommodation or are sleeping in cars and are literally homeless and who cannot access services. Will the Minister give some attention to ascertaining whether this service could be ramped up into being of real assistance to homeless families?
I will.
The general point is there is a reluctance regardless of whether a tenancy is for three, five or ten years. If one has been in insecure accommodation with the threat of being evicted at any time over the years, it is an appalling vista to be obliged to return to and spend one's entire life in such accommodation. I represent children, as obviously does the Minister also, who have grown up in a situation in which there has been no stable accommodation, which is completely unacceptable. As I stated, the Minister in particular must examine the way in which this scheme is not fit for purpose. It is not delivering and is not solving the problem. As I stated, there are 1,000 such families on this very day.
Thank you, Deputy. Please allow the Minister to respond.
First, I will take on board the comments in respect of the place finder service. However, I note HAP has not been rolled out in the Dublin City Council area yet. It is a specific homeless HAP pilot project, which is a different, albeit highly important, scheme because it has found sustainable tenancies for many people. The entire point of HAP is to take people out of the type of uncertainty the Deputy rightly talks about, which many people find themselves in or from which they are pushed, in the private rental sector. The point is to put in place a much more solid and sustainable tenancy under HAP in which the local authority deals directly with the landlord and does a deal with that landlord on a medium to long-term tenancy. In this scheme, the tenant then deals with the local authority rather than with the landlord. That is the entire purpose of trying to switch people from rent supplement, for example, onto HAP, namely, to try to get much greater certainty and to try to enforce standards, because HAP tenancies and facilities are inspected by my Department before they are approved.
HAP is not perfect but it is a big step in the right direction.
