THE TRANSFER of responsibility for rent allowance payments to local authorities and the Department of the Environment should help to eliminate “poverty traps” that exist in the current welfare system, Minister of State for Housing Jan O’Sullivan has said.
Ms O’Sullivan said the Government was keen to move towards a system where individuals would receive a smaller amount of rent allowance if they found employment, as opposed to losing the benefit altogether. “We won’t have the poverty traps we have at the moment where if people on rent allowance get a part-time job, they are in danger of losing their entire rent allowance,” she said. “That means for many of those people they can’t actually afford to work because they can’t afford to lose their rent allowance.”
The transfer of the payment from the Department of Social Protection is to begin next year.
Ms O’Sullivan was speaking at the publication of a report on financing social housing by the Clúid Housing Association.
The report recommends housing associations seek private funding to support their work, which would be supplemented by a State contribution. Such a model has become necessary following a significant drop in the amount of Government funding available to those working in the sector.
Clúid recently acquired 58 homes in the Beacon South Quarter scheme in Sandyford, Dublin, using private finance and it hopes to make further acquisitions in a similar manner.
Another of the report’s main recommendations is that an independent regulator be appointed for the sector as effective regulation was a vital element in creating an environment in which private funders will lend to housing associations with confidence.
Some 98,000 people are in need of social housing support at present, and Ms O’Sullivan said she hoped some 4,000 new properties would be made available for the purpose this year with a further 1,000 vacant properties also coming on stream. She said her department was assessing the suitability of a selection of 2,000 properties across the State put forward for the purpose by the National Asset Management Agency.
