Housing, Local Government and Heritage | Addressing the number of housing applicants in receipt of HAP or rent support and meeting their housing needs directly

To ask the Minister for Housing; Local Government and Heritage the number of housing applicants currently in receipt of HAP or rent support; the extent to which progress is being made to meet their housing needs directly rather than through various support schemes; and if he will make a statement on the matter.

REPLY

The Housing Assistance Payment (HAP) scheme is a flexible and immediate housing support that is available to all eligible households with a long term housing need. At end Q3 2022, over 106,700 HAP tenancies have been set-up since the scheme commenced, with almost 59,700 active tenancies being supported under the HAP Scheme.  

I am committed to decreasing our reliance on the HAP scheme and central to that is significantly scaling up our social housing supply. Housing for All is the Government’s plan to increase the supply of new homes to an average of 33,000 per year over the next decade. This includes the delivery of 90,000 social homes, 36,000 affordable purchase homes and 18,000 cost rental homes. As new build supply of social and affordable housing ramps up, there will be reducing reliance on the HAP scheme.

At end Q3 2022, 15,380 households had moved from HAP to other forms of local authority social housing since the HAP scheme commenced in 2014. 3,037 of these households moved from HAP to social housing in 2022 to end Q3.

My Department publishes comprehensive programme-level statistics on a quarterly basis on social housing delivery activity in all local authorities. This data is available until the end of Quarter 3 2022 and is published on the statistics page of my Department’s website, at the following link: https://www.gov.ie/en/collection/6060e-overall-social-housing-provision/

The Department of Social Protection operates the Rent Supplement scheme which continues to play a key role in supporting families and individuals in private rented accommodation. This scheme provides short-term income support to eligible people living in private rented accommodation.  Further data in relation to this scheme is available from the Department of Social Protection.