Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 7 December 2017
5. Deputy Catherine Murphy asked the Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government his department's expenditure on all rental supports (details supplied) for 2017; the projected expenditure on same for 2018, by rental support heading; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [52462/17]
Amharc ar fhreagraI want to get information on the various housing support schemes, including the housing assistance payment, HAP, the rental accommodation scheme, RAS, and long-term leasing, to try and make sense of them for this year and next year. It would be useful to have projections into the future, because it would demonstrate whether or not this is a sustainable approach, even in the medium term.
Rebuilding Ireland sets out that some 87,000 households will have their housing needs met by local authorities, using either the Rental Accommodation Scheme, RAS, or the Housing Assistance Payment, HAP, over the period to 2021.
Exchequer funding for HAP in 2017 is €152.7 million. This will meet the continuing costs of existing HAP households at the start of the year and support well in excess of 15,000 additional households under the scheme in 2017. Funding for the HAP in 2018 will increase to €301 million, supporting an additional 17,000 households under the scheme next year.
Funding for the RAS in 2017 is €134 million, supporting over 20,000 households under the scheme. Similar funding will be provided for 2018, providing for 600 new transfers and ongoing costs. The decreasing number of annual transfers from rent supplement to the RAS is indicative of the increasing number of transfers from rent supplement to the HAP.
Long-term leasing is also an important component of the suite of delivery options available to local authorities in meeting housing needs, the costs of which are met from my Department's Social Housing Current Expenditure Programme, SHCEP. Exchequer funding for the SHCEP in 2017 is €84 million, supporting the ongoing costs of over 8,000 homes secured from a range of delivery mechanisms. This funding also provides for new houses coming into the scheme in 2017, of which 600 are targeted to be long term leases from private owners. An allocation of €115 million has been secured for 2018 which will support ongoing costs of the programme, together with additional social housing homes coming into the scheme next year, of which 2,000 are to be delivered under long-term leasing.
Responsibility for the operation of the rent supplement scheme rests with my colleague, the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection.
A large amount of money has been announced for Rebuilding Ireland. We are trying to desegregate the capital from the current. Increasingly we are seeing the current amount growing, and given the amount of precarious employment, including zero-hour contracts, low-hour contracts and temporary employment, more people will qualify. The number is growing, and the housing model becomes unsustainable into the future because more and more money will be used for the current side as opposed to the capital side. It becomes an unsustainable housing model which really supports private landlords as opposed to a longer term approach. I accept that we are in the middle of a crisis and it will take time to get out of that. However, we are going to make it more difficult to get out of if the money is all spent and committed into the future, which is the way that this has been approached.
With regard to the numbers, separating the RAS from the HAP is important because some people are simply moving from one to the other and so perhaps the numbers are being duplicated.
We are spending taxpayers' money on Rebuilding Ireland, building more houses and looking after people who are homeless. There is going to be a 46% increase in spending next year from the commitments we got in the budget. That amounts to €1.9 billion. Some €1.4 billion of that will be capital spending on social house building. That will deliver approximately 5,900 social housing homes through buildings and acquisitions. That covers local authority building, housing body building, Part 5 builds, void conversions and acquisitions. It amounts to 5,900 new houses being added to the permanent social housing stock. An additional 2,000 will be long-term leased for 25 to 30 years. Again, this is permanent social housing stock. In total there will be almost 8,000 homes next year which will be social housing providing secure homes and sustainable tenancies for people.
Clearly the HAP plays a big role in meeting these targets as well. There has been a lot of criticism about the HAP but there are a couple of things about it that are important to know. It gives flexibility to tenants who want that flexibility, and, from an administrative point of view, it saves costs for local authorities in terms of the new functions put in place. This means there is more money to go into other social housing supports. It also leads to better rental inspection standards because of the regulations in place for the HAP, and this is important. In the final two years of the Rebuilding Ireland plan, in 2020 and 2021, our reliance on the HAP for social housing will be less than our reliance on social house building, buying and long-term leasing.
There is an argument that spending to save is another approach. If social or affordable housing units were built there would be a quicker saving on that side and a more sustainable approach. We should be able to rely on the figures from the Department rather than doubt them, and there continues to be a doubt about some of the figures. I will table some parliamentary questions that might explore this further.
It continues to be said that there is sufficient flexibility to meet market demands. This does not bear fruit when we actually look at growing rents and the amount of money available. It is a double-edged sword because we do not want people who do not qualify for the HAP to face rent increases, which are not sustainable either. I dispute that it is flexible enough, and the reason it is not flexible enough is because of insufficient supply. There is no solution other than building on a much larger scale than has been announced. The Minister spoke about 46% more, but this is from a low base. It gives an impression rather than being the scale that is needed.
Building is happening at quite a dramatic scale. When I publish the figures for the work we have done on the social housing side for this year it will show us exceeding almost all of our targets. We also have ambitious plans for 2018. I ask the Deputy not to casually question the Department's numbers. This is important-----
I am not casually questioning them.
Seriously questioning them.
If they are wrong we are right to question them.
Of course it is important to ask questions when we publish the data, but it is also important not to casually think we may have a problem with numbers.
We do.
We publish our numbers regularly.
We have a problem with the numbers.
The Minister without interruption.
We regularly have a problem with numbers.
We publish our numbers regularly. We think it is important that we all work from the same data.
With regard to flexibility around the HAP payments, of course there is flexibility to go to an additional 20% above what the HAP allows for in terms of market rent. In Kildare, this has happened in approximately 39% of cases, and payments have gone to 14% above what was the rent at the time. It shows that the HAP is working in terms of providing flexibility. Almost all of the indicators we have for social house building and for private house building show a very positive increase. Planning permissions have increased by almost 50%, construction commencement notices have increased by almost 30%, and we have a greater number of ESB connections, not just in Dublin but around the country.
That is not reliable.
All of these indicators are positive in terms of increased activity.
