Tom Moffatt
Ceist:32 Dr. Moffatt asked the Minister for the Environment the reason he has instructed local authorities to remove the residency clause from their scheme of priorities for letting of accommodation. [9999/95]
Written Answers. - Local Authority Accommodation.
The allocation of local authority accommodation is a matter for the individual housing authorities having regard to the requirements of sections 9 and 11 of the Housing Act, 1988.
In making a housing assessment, a housing authority may, to such extent, if any, as the authority consider appropriate, include housing needs arising from the requirements of persons who are residing outside the functional area of the authority.
Each housing authority is required to make a scheme of priorities for letting their dwellings to persons who were included in the last assessment of need undertaken by the authority, or accepted for inclusion in the next assessment. The purpose of a scheme of letting priorities is to provide a means for determining the order of priority to be afforded, in the letting of dwellings, to persons accepted as entitled to local authority housing.
Guidelines issued on 15 March 1989 to local authorities informed them that a minimum residency requirement, which may have been included in a scheme of priorities under section 60 of the Housing Act, 1966, as a basis for determining a person's eligibility for local authority housing, was not appropriate for inclusion in a scheme of letting priorities under section 11. Local authorities were advised that they should include in a scheme for letting priorities only those conditions which relate to the determination of priority and not those relating to establishing, in the first instance, a person's eligibility for local authority housing.