Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 22 September 2020
327. Deputy Bernard J. Durkan asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage the cost of rent support payments in lieu of local authority housing made in the past five years to date; the potential for the replacement of such expenditure with directly built local authority houses; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [25551/20]
View answerAcross the period 2016 to 2021, we are working to meet the housing needs of more than 138,000 additional households. This includes 50,000 long term supports in build, bought or leased homes, being delivered by both local authorities and Approved Housing Bodies (AHBs) and also congoing support under the Housing Assistance Payment (HAP) scheme and the Rental Accommodation Scheme (RAS). The Programme for Government builds on this ambition with a further 50,000 social homes, and an emphasis on new build. The Government is committed to increasing the supply of social housing and a primary focus continues to be the construction of new social housing homes. However, it is important that local authorities have the capacity to respond to local residential property markets and that they have the tools to provide a range of accommodation types in all of the areas where social housing need arises.
To meet existing, mid term and long term demand, including for those households in emergency accommodation, a range of housing options are necessary.
The Housing Assistance Payment (HAP), a social housing support being provided by local authorities, is one such tool. HAP will replace Rent Supplement for those with a long-term housing need who qualify for social housing support. The introduction of HAP means that local authorities can now provide housing assistance for households with a long-term housing need, including many long-term Rent Supplement recipients. At the end of Q2 2020, nearly 79,000 HAP tenancies had been set-up since the scheme commenced, of which there were more than 56,500 households actively in receipt of HAP support and over 32,000 separate landlords and agents providing accommodation to households supported by the scheme. However, the introduction of HAP has not resulted in increased usage of the private rented sector by the State – at end 2018, there were almost 6,000 fewer tenancies supported through Rent Supplement, Rental Accommodation Scheme or HAP than at end 2014, when the HAP scheme commenced.
HAP is funded through a combination of Exchequer monies and tenant differential rents collected in respect of HAP tenancies. Budget 2019 increased the Exchequer funding for the HAP scheme to €422 million. This allowed for the continued support of existing HAP households and also enabled the additional 16,760 households targeted under Rebuilding Ireland to be supported by HAP in 2019, as well as supporting the roll-out of the Homeless HAP Place Finder Support Service across the country. With 68,693 households on our waiting lists, the combination of 50,000 social housing homes and 88,000 HAP and RAS supports, which will be funded by the Government out to 2021, means that both long term and flexible options will be available to those on our social housing waiting lists.
Details on the Exchequer funding for HAP are set out in the table below:
|
Year |
2017 |
2018 |
2019 |
2020 |
|
Outturn |
€152.69m |
€276.6m |
€422m |
€497.7m |
Exchequer funding for the HAP scheme increased to €497.7million in 2020. This will enable a further 15,750 households to be supported, as well as continuing support for the over 52,000 existing HAP tenancies in place at end 2019.
During the period 2016-2018, the housing needs of some 91,000 households were supported under "current" expenditure programmes, including the HAP and RAS schemes. This figure includes continuing to provide support to those already in homes supported under the programmes concerned, and also the additional tenancies established during that period. If the funding provided for these 91,000 households had been transferred to capital expenditure, to support building or buying homes, it would have secured some 5,500 homes, leaving no resources available to support the other 85,500 households. Alternatively, it would take almost €20 billion to provide a new build local authority home for each of those 91,000 households.
