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A TOTAL OF €28 million was paid to landlords and agents with tenants who are availing of the Housing Assistance Payment by the Irish state in June, it has been revealed.
Council officials gave a presentation to the Dublin City Council Housing Special Policy Committee this week on the Housing Assistance Payment (Hap) and Homeless Housing Assistance Payment.
Hap and Homeless Hap are a form of rental benefit payment to assist lower-income households. Homeless Hap is available only to people who are registered as homeless.
Under Hap, a tenant’s main rent is paid directly to a landlord, with the tenant paying a differential rent to their local council. The tenants must cover their own deposit, and no rent is paid by the council in advance of them entering the home.
There are strict rent limits depending on what area a home is in. In Dublin, for example, the maximum rent limit for a single adult or couple with one child is €1250, this goes up to €1,300 for a single adult or couple with three children.
In Dublin, the council is able to agree to pay 20% above these limits on a discretionary basis.
With Homeless Hap (which is currently only available in Dublin) the council can agree to pay a deposit and two months’ rent in advance. They may also agree to pay up to 50% of the rent limits.
Homeless Hap is seen as a way to get families and children out of long-term emergency accommodation, like hotels or B&Bs.
Hap is seen as a form of social housing provision and forms a large part of the government’s social housing plan.
Any tenants housed under Hap are deemed to have their social housing needs met, and are taken off the social housing waiting list and put onto a different transfer list.
The figures
Speaking at the council meeting on Wednesday, Hap official Rose O’Dwyer laid out a number of stats in relation to the payment.
In total, there are currently 37,462 Hap tenancies in operation across the country. Payments to landlords and agents last month alone equalled to €28 million.
O’Dwyer said that this figure is rising by about €1 million a month.
About €4 million is taken in by rents paid by tenants each month, and this rises by about €300,000 a month.
The current yearly budget for Hap from the Housing Department is €310 million.
Dublin City Council only started using Hap in March of 2017. Despite Dublin having by far the highest number of homeless people, and one of the most acute housing needs, the number of Hap tenancies managed in Dublin is relatively low when compared with other areas.
O’Dwyer said that 1584 live Hap tenancies are currently managed by the council across the four local authorities and in other counties that people have transferred to.
As well as this, there are 3,588 Homeless Hap tenancies in Dublin.
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All that money spent and not a single house build for it!
@Dave Thomas: most of that money will stay Ireland, and only being negotiating for an additional 20% hap increase is stupid if the tenants have to go to a hotel and the taxpayer pays multiples. The HAP doesn’t reflect market conditions so it’s in effect, broken.
@Dave Thomas: do you want them to stop paying it and build houses instead for the tenants? What will they do in the mean time since they can’t afford the rent, it takes time to build the houses
Landlords who provide accommodation under the HAP scheme are to be commended. They are providing a very valuable and much needed service to the community. It is to their credit that they do so , sometimes accepting a much lower rent than available in the private sector.
@Martin: I don’t think hap brings the price down, Landlords still get their full rent
@Martin: Notice how the story is pitched to portray landlords as the villains of the piece – pocketing €28m of taxpayer money. Most landlords have no interest in providing social housing – that’s the state’s role not the role of private landlords. The fact that Minister Murphy and before him Coveney have worked tirelessly to reduce the supply of rental accommodation has meant that rental prices have increased which in turn has forced more tenants into the HAP scheme. Increase the rental supply and market forces will see rents drop and lessen the need for HAP. So much for FG supposedly being the ‘friend’ of landlords…
@Diogenes: Are you sure Diogenes? I have looked into the Hap rules and I know that they are not landlord friendly.
@Martin:
Almost all HAP tenants have to top up the rent out of their own pockets as the limits don’t reflect market prices
@Diogenes: If anything HAP artificially inflates all rents.
I reckon if HAP was completely done away with landlords would have no choice but to accept lower rents.
Fine Gael hate welfare, unless it’s going into their supporters pockets
@Martin: Yeah displaying great civic duties by charging 2k a month for a dog box. Jesus wept.
@Good Early:
How would it inflate prices when the upper limit is in almost all area below market rate?
@Diogenes: I’m a landlord I could of asked for 1200-1300 but didn’t Just wanted my mortgage covered. Any money over the mortgage should be taxed at the highest percentage
@David Clarke: why should others pay because if your bad investment?
If you couldn’t afford the mortgage why take it out?
28m per month. That’s 336m per annum. Say it costs 40000 to build new or refurbish a disused house. 8400 houses within a year.
Why do we even have this HAP scheme as a long term solution?
@Siobhan Maguire: 40000 to build a new house ?? . Not in 2018 .
@Tim McCarthy: not if you give Alan Kelly the cheque book anyway
@DaisyMay:
Put another nought on it. 840 houses in a year.
That €336 million is providing a roof over 37,000 sets of tenants
Build social housing, stop wasting TAX PAYERS MONEY!! this government doesn’t want to upset the banks and lobbyists by building affordable housing! Stop giving ECONOMIC MIGRANTS with fresh visas and living in hotels housing over our own nationals this country has their priorities up there hxxx!!!
@Shyster Inc Ireland: kick all the people who so badly need HAP out of the houses! Spend the money building social houses, wave the magic wand the houses will appear immediately! It’s not a simple solution, HAP keeps a lot of people with a roof over their families heads
@Shyster Inc Ireland: So looking after people is wasting “Tax payers” money? Surely the whole reason we pay tax is for services. And I for one would rather see me taxes putting a roof over someones head than buying new Mercs for ministers. Also this whole build more houses is ridiculous in a country with 250.000 empty houses, Move more of the industries out of Dublin and take the strain off a city already above it’s usable limits.
NO excuse for the lack of affordable or social housing in ireland ,its rigged to suit vested interests .the men of 1916 would not be impressed .
@Anthony Gallagher: This country is populated with social housing. Solve the problem. Remove this right of free housing. This is not a right, it is a wrong
I, as an evil landlord who makes a fortune on renting my one house which I had bought for myself to live in in 2008 and is still worth more than 100,000 euro less than I paid for it, but had to move out after long term relationship broke up would, greatly welcome the return of council housing estates.
@Michael Carty: people forget how much the government is making on all the extra tax collected from landlords. Perhaps this could be put back into social housing
How much of that 28 million goes on income tax and into the banks coffers? Misleading headline that, we have alot of poor accidental landlords.
@Stephen Cullen: Well said Many accidental landlords are subsidising the housing market at great expense to themselves.
@Martin: and massive tax bills
@Stephen Cullen: Forgetting about the bank for a moment and other expenses, if the State pays €28m in HAP and gets €10m back in tax on rental income surely that is then a total net spend of €18m on HAP and not €28m as reported?
Status quo suits FFG …
@Willy Malone:
And the majority look likely to vote FFG so maybe the status quo suits the majority?
I’m alright Jack.
Absolutely scandalous. Money should be ploughed into building social housing.
Build social housing instead of manipulating figures,how can a landlords house be considered social housing for god sake,and also taken of house waiting list,totally false figures.
@@mdmak33: that’s true a lot of people, when they sign up for HAP, don’t realize that they will be removed from the housing list.
In other breaking and shocking news, the government last month spend millions of Euro on other goods and services such as food and taxis for hospital patients!
If it was paid to private landlords €14 million will go back to the state in taxes, a money go round!
Time for this government to go this is a ticking time bomb. It’s not fair for the council to be expected to pay market rates for properties. At the moment this scheme is the only thing keeping thousands from becoming homeless.
More money from the public purse flowing into the pockets of private landlords!
Social Welfare for the well heeled!
Keep the Recovery Going!
Great little country to do business in!
Selective achievement!
One of the reasons given for the reluctance to build social housing is that a mix of social housing and privately owned houses is seen as more desirable to help integrate communities.
Except this was happening anyway in older estates where tenants were allowed to buy out their houses. This works well in the long term as people build up a sense of community .
By not now allowing council houses to be bought by other family members is forcing these people to leave the area and find somewhere else to live away from their elderly relatives when they need them most.
All they needed to do here was to up the price of the house been passed on and use the money to build new houses elsewhere for new tenants.But that would make sense and common sense is as scarce as housing.
28 million in a month??? Good God what a waste of resources so the so called “market” can be manipulated to keep homes out of the reach of ordinary people.
A mix of social housing, private housing, and rental accomodation, keeps a lid on the free market and makes rents and private homes affordable.
This is no part of FG’s neoliberal agenda.
It should read 28 million paid to TDs
Most landlords are funded by a bank and in it for 25/30 years , so your welcome if your capable of attaining such a loan , it’s a free market, but do take the ups with the downs
Hap is the biggest scam of all time. As the government are paying so much of the rent there is no incentive to keep the price rent down. Rising rents means increased demand for buy to let properties. Forcing house prices upwards and resulting in ordinary people being unable to afford their own home. Putting more people onto the hap scheme and off we go again. Property bubble.
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