Working HAP households have a median gross income of less than €20k

There were 68,180 households in receipt of HAP at the end of 2022, down from its 2021 peak of 70,620, but still far in excess of the 57,620 homes accessing the support as recently as 2019.

Working households accessing the Government’s Housing Assistance Payment in order to pay their rent had a median gross income of just under €20,000 in 2022, new statistics reveal.

The Central Statistics Office, in an analysis of the HAP scheme published on Friday, said 2022 was, however, the first year that saw more households exit the scheme than enter it since it was launched in 2014.

Meanwhile, landlords with 50 or more HAP properties owned nearly 20%, significantly more than 10,000, of all HAP properties in 2022.

HAP is a means-tested rent subsidy payment and one of the key metrics for social housing provision in Ireland. It sees the State contribute to private rental payments for qualifying tenants.

It has been harshly criticised for several years as only serving to subsidise private landlords and skewing the figures for social housing provision given none of the housing in question is owned by the State.

Waiting list

Despite the scheme’s prevalence, those applying for HAP still face lengthy waiting lists due to the sheer lack of properties for rent across the country.

The average waiting time was 412 days on average across Ireland in 2022, with the longest waits by far being in the Dublin local authorities which each averaged roughly three years.

In Cork the average wait time is 308 days. Monaghan has the shortest waiting period at 140 days.

Last June there were no properties available whatsoever in Cork city under HAP, according to homeless charity the Simon Community.

Some 3,290 households left HAP last year on a net basis, the CSO said. However, the statistical body added that two in five exits from HAP in 2022 were to another form of social housing.

It said Dublin City Council was the local authority with the highest number of households signed up to HAP in 2022 with 9,650. DCC also had the highest churn in terms of the scheme, with 950 new households entering and 1,070 exiting last year.

In terms of new working households accessing HAP in 2022, some 65% of new applicants had some employment in 2022, compared with 37% in 2015, a fact which would be counterweighed by the current inflationary crisis and the fact rents have increased by roughly 50% nationally over that seven-year period.

The median gross income for HAP households as at the end of last year was €19,341 last year, the CSO said, which ranges from €12,070 per annum in Donegal to €24,039 in Dun-Laoghaire Rathdown.

The report said that the percentage of HAP tenants receiving welfare supports such as unemployment benefits has been decreasing, and now stands at 53% as at the end of 2022.