Concerns raised locally over Housing Assistance Payment Scheme

Concerns were raised locally about where the Housing Assistance Payment (HAP) scheme is going into the future.

Paid out through the local authority, the HAP is a form of social housing support for people, who have a long term housing need and according to the latest figures, there are currently 213 current active HAP tenancies in total in the Birr Municipal District.

Addressing the July meeting of the Municipal District, John Cunningham, Executive Engineer with Offaly County Council, said there were now 14 new HAP tenancies in the Birr Municipal District.

Cllr Peter Ormond said the Housing Assistance Payment needed to be looked at on “two fronts”. “In terms of the cost of the rental market for people that need it the most, it is starting to get out the reach of people. The rents, people think they can afford it now if they are getting a HAP payment and perhaps, get a top but the rents are moving up now.”

“This is putting people under pressure and then they are two years stuck in that house and can't go anywhere. I think we need to be careful in the way that the HAP is going. We need to look at a bit more realistic rents in the market and give people the chance to live and stay in their own house.”

Cllr John Carroll agreed with Cllr Ormond and that the cost of rent was “going up all the time” as well as voicing concerns about the condition of some of the houses being utilised under the HAP scheme. “The conditions of some of them [the houses] was also not meeting what you would expect a house to be. Some of them have high enough rents and the landlords aren't prepared to carry out the repair work that's necessary on them. Some of them are in need of repair.”

“I don't know how much our hands are tied to force the landlord to do these repairs? Does the person have to stay in the house for two years even if the house is not fit to live in.”

Cllr John Clendennen agreed the cost of rent being “potentially out of the reach” of people. “The supply is the main issue here in Birr. It comes back to the basic law of economics of supply and demand. If that supply does come back, we are going to bring down the demand in relation to the rent. It is all coming back to supply. We need to strengthen it and get more low hanging fruit and I think one of our best options for that is vacant premises in towns and villages.”