Relate, February 2003

Rent Supplement
Domestic Violence
Medical Card Income Guidelines
Planning and Development (Amendment) Bill
Social Housing - Correction
Directory of Natonal Voluntary Organisations

Rent Supplement

Rent supplement may be paid to people who cannot afford to pay the rent in privately rented accommodation. It is part of the Supplementary Welfare Allowance scheme and is administered by Community Welfare Officers in health boards. The rules apply in broadly the same way to mortgage interest payments but we are concerned here only with the rules in relation to rent.

The rules in relation to the supplement have become quite complex in recent years. The general principle underlying the rent supplement is that you must have a certain minimum income left after you pay the rent. In general, it is not available to people in full time employment but there are exceptions to this. In recent years, a number of changes have been made to ensure that people do not lose out on increased social welfare payments by having their rent supplement reduced as a result. There have always been rules about the kind of accommodation which will attract a rent supplement and, in November 2002, a new rule was introduced which states that a rent supplement is generally not payable in cases where the rent being charged is greater than a maximum amount set out for each health board area.

Here we look at the main conditions of the scheme. These are the conditions which apply at present. There are some recipients of rent supplement whose entitlement was assessed under earlier different rules.

Who is entitled

You may qualify for the rent supplement if:

• you are living in privately rented accommodation
• the accommodation is suitable for your needs and the rent is reasonable
• you are not in full time employment (employment for 30 hours a week or more) or education, but you may retain entitlement in certain cases
• you do not have an adequate income left after paying the rent.

In practice, most recipients are people who are receiving weekly social welfare payments or who have availed of back to work or back to education schemes. You need to have evidence of your rent payments - a rent book or some other form of receipt.

Adequate Income

After you have paid the rent, you should have at least the amount of the weekly Supplementary Welfare Allowance appropriate to your circumstances less €12, which is regarded as being the housing element of your social welfare payment. This amount was €7.62 but was increased from 30 December 2002 (Statutory Instrument 630 of 2002). This new amount applies to all applicants for rent supplement. So, if your only income is a short term social welfare payment, you are expected to pay €12 of that towards the rent. The current rates of weekly SWA are

• Personal rate: €124.80
• Increase for qualified adult: €82.80
• Increase for each child dependant: €16.80

So, a single person should have €112.80 left after paying rent; a couple should have €195.60 left.

Disregards

Pensioners: One result of this way of assessing income is that the annual increase in your social welfare payment is effectively "clawed back" in that your rent supplement is reduced because of it. There are measures to reduce or eliminate this clawback for pensioners. From January 2003, €23 is disregarded for the purposes of entitlement to rent supplement for people aged 65 and over who are receiving a social welfare pension. This figure was €10 a week for a single person and €20 a week for a couple; the new disregard applies to the household.

If a pensioner couple would end up losing any of the budget increase then the disregard is adjusted to ensure that they do not. (This could happen in the case of pensioners who are each getting a personal pension)

Part-time employment: If you are in part-time employment (which includes Community Employment), the first €50 per week of your income is disregarded when assessing your entitlement. Part time employment means less than 30 hours a week.

Training Schemes: The first €50 per week of additional income arising from participation in approved training courses, e.g. FÁS skills training courses, is disregarded.

Rehabilitative earnings: If you are on Disability Allowance, you may earn up to €120 per week from approved rehabilitative employment without affecting your payment. Such earnings are also disregarded for the purposes of rent supplement.

One-Parent Family Payment: If you are receiving OFP, you may retain a certain amount of maintenance payments without affecting your OFP. Up to €95.23 of maintenance payments may be deemed to be in respect of rent and half of the amount above this is taken into account as means.

In order that this is not clawed back by a reduction in rent supplement there is a disregard of up to €50 of the extra amount of OFP that the claimant gets because of this rule.

The €95.23 is taken into account in calculating the amount of supplement payable.

This method of dealing with maintenance payments is to be extended to most other means tested payments from May 2003 (see Relate, January 2003). It is not clear if the disregard for rent supplement purposes will also apply.

Carer's Allowance

If you or your spouse is receiving a Carer's Allowance, the difference between the amount of the allowance and the current SWA rate for a qualified adult is disregarded. If you are a single person, the amount disregarded is the difference between the allowance and the personal rate of SWA.

Retention as secondary benefit

If you have been receiving a rent supplement, you may be entitled to retain it if you avail of one of the back to work schemes or take up employment in the normal way. The back to work schemes are:

• Back to Work Allowance scheme (BTWA)
• Back to Work Enterprise Allowance (BTWEA)
• Very Long Term Unemployed Back to Work Scheme
• Community Employment
• Job Initiative
• Jobstart (for 52 weeks)
• Revenue Job Assist.
• Workplace

The rent supplement will be paid at a tapered rate over 4 years. The tapering means that you get 75% of the supplement in the first year and 50%, 25% and 25% in the subsequent years.

There are conditions attached to this retention of rent supplement for all schemes except Workplace. One of the conditions is that gross household income must not be more than €317.43 a week. (This figure has not been increased since1994). However, the Back to Work Allowance and Family Income Supplement are not included in the assessment of gross household income.

If you are on the BTWA or Community Employment, you can have your entitlement to the supplement assessed in the normal way or under the retention rules. The method which bests suits you depends on what other income you have.

If you have been receiving a rent supplement, have been unemployed for 12 months and you take up a full time job, you may continue to get a rent supplement at a tapered rate over 4 years. This is also subject to gross household income being less than €317.43.

Maximum Payments

In practice, health boards have always set guide levels above which any rent supplement could not be approved by the Community Welfare Officer. This maximum amount was not set out in legislation - it was an administrative arrangement. New regulations have been made which do set the maximum amounts in legislation - Statutory Instrument 527 of 2002. These regulations also provide that no rent supplement is payable in cases where the rent exceeds this amount.

The legislation still provides that exceptions to these maximum amounts may be allowed in exceptional circumstances. Each case must be assessed on its merits. The Department of Social and Family Affairs guidelines to Community Welfare Officers include examples of where the maximum rule may be breached - for example, if you will be in a position to pay your rent within a short period or if you are a person with special housing needs.

2002/2003 maximum weekly rent levels in each health board area

Single persons

ERHA	MHB	MWHB	NEHB	NWHB	SEHB	WHB	SHB
€107.00 per week	€85.00 per week	€85.00 per week	€76.20 per week	€77.00 per week	€115.00 per week	€115.00 per week	€83.00 per week
Couple with no children	€178.00 per week	€115.00 per week	€130.00 per week	€120.70 per week	€115.00 per week	€130.00 per week	€115.00 per week	€153.00 per week
Couple +1 child or one-parent family with 1 child	€953.00 per month	€140.00 per week	€150.00 per week	€133.40 per week	€115.00 per week	€130.00 per week	€175.00 per week	€153.00 per week
Couple + 2 children or one-parent family +2 children	€1,200.00 per month	€160.00 per week	€170.00 per week	€152.40 per week	€153.00 per week	€170.00 per week	€200.00 per week	€190.00 per week
Couple +3 children or one-parent family +3 children	€1,200.00 per month	€160.00 per week	€185.00 per week	€190.50 per week	€153.00 per week	€170.00 per week	€200.00 per week	€203.00 per week

Transfer to Local Authorities

The Government decided, in principle, in 1999 to introduce a new local authority rent assistance scheme to replace the current arrangements for rent supplements. It was expected that this decision would have been implemented by now but it has not. There is a Planning Group working on the details but it is not clear when (or if) it will happen. The intention to implement the new arrangements followed on the publication of a report by an inter-Departmental Committee on the Administration of Rent and Mortgage Assistance. Its main recommendation was that rent assistance should be provided by local authorities as part of, and integrated into, housing policy.

Domestic violence legislation

In the criminal law, an assault which is committed in the home is the same as one committed elsewhere and can be prosecuted in the same way. The Domestic Violence Act, 1996 provides for a number of different mechanisms to protect people from domestic violence. One aspect of that law was recently found to be unconstitutional and an amending Act - the Domestic Violence (Amendment) Act, 2002 has been passed to rectify the problem.

In the debate on the Act, the Minister of State at the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform said that the government was considering other reforms of the legislation which would be introduced as part of a general family law reform Bill in about a year's time.

In 2001, there were 4,470 applications for barring orders and 2,067 were granted. There were 2,903 applications for safety orders and 1,232 were granted.

Here, we briefly describe how the domestic violence legislation works and the changes which have been made.

Safety and Welfare

The different orders which are available under the legislation may be made if the Court considers that there are reasonable grounds for believing that the safety and welfare of the applicant and/or the dependants require such an order. The Act provides that the meaning of "welfare" includes mental and emotional welfare as well as physical welfare. In practise, the majority of orders are made in cases of physical violence.

Barring Orders

The following people may apply for a Barring Order:

• a spouse may apply for an order against the other spouse (in this context, spouse includes a former spouse)
• a cohabitee may apply for an order against the other cohabitee if they have lived together as husband and wife for at least 6 months in total during the 9 months before the application
• a parent may apply for an order against an adult child who is not a dependant of the parent (i.e. a child who is over the age of 18 unless the child has a physical or mental disability such as to make him/her incapable of living independently of the parent).

A Barring Order orders the other person to leave the family home or other place where you or the dependant live. It may also prohibit the other person from

• using or threatening to use violence against you or a dependant, molesting you or a dependant or putting either of you in fear and/or
• being in the vicinity of, or watching or besetting, a place where you or a dependant live.

Exceptions and other conditions may also be imposed.

There are some restrictions on the granting of Barring Orders to non-spouses. For constitutional reasons involving property rights, it is not possible to get a Barring Order which orders a person who is not your spouse to leave a home in which he/she has greater ownership rights than you do. So, if you are cohabiting with a man/woman who owns the house in which you live you will not be able to get a Barring Order. You may be able to get a Safety Order. You may be able to get a Barring Order if you jointly own the house.

An application for a Barring Order may be made to the District Court or the Circuit Court. (The application may be made on its own or may be part of judicial separation or divorce proceedings - in these cases, the application is usually made to the Circuit Court.) The District Court order may be granted for up to 3 years and is renewable. The Circuit Court Order may be unlimited.

If you apply for a Barring Order the court will not give you a Safety Order instead (see below) but you may apply for both at the same time.

Interim Barring Order

The original Act provided for the making of interim barring orders in certain cases. An interim order could be made if the court was of the view that:

• there is an immediate and serious risk of significant harm to the person applying or a dependant if the order is not made immediately and
• a Protection Order would not be adequate.

Aspects of the procedure involved in such orders were found to be unconstitutional and the new Act changes the rules.

The original Act allowed that, in exceptional circumstances, the interim order could be granted even if the person against whom it was being made was not present or represented in court or had not been given notice of the application for a barring order. This is known as an ex parte application and it was the procedure in relation to this which was found to be unconstitutional.

There is a general legal principle that fair procedures require that the other side is heard in any dispute. The Supreme Court held that this principle was not being respected in the case of an interim barring order because the legislation did not set any limit on the period during which the interim order could remain in force. This decision means that interim barring orders may still be made ex parte but there must be a limit on their duration.

The new Act makes new arrangements for interim barring orders. It provides that an interim barring order may be made ex parte if the court considers it necessary or expedient in the interests of justice. The application must be made on an affidavit or sworn information. If the order is made ex parte, then the affidavit and a note of the evidence must be given to the other side as soon as possible. The ex parte interim order may only last for 8 working days. The interim order may be confirmed before that time is up if notice is given to the other side.

Protection Orders

If you apply for a Barring Order, you may be granted a Protection Order for the period while you are awaiting a decision. This is an order prohibiting the person from using violence against, molesting or putting you or your dependants in fear. It does not prevent the other person from living in the house. Protection orders cease when the application for a Barring Order is decided.

Safety Orders

Safety Orders are long-term Protection Orders except that you may apply for a Safety Order on its own; it is not an interim order while awaiting something else.

The Order directs the other person (your spouse, cohabitee etc.) not to use or threaten to use violence against, molest or put in fear either yourself or a dependant. If the person against whom the order is made is not living with you then the order may also order that he/she not watch or beset the place where you or the dependant are living. A Safety Order does not involve keeping a person out of the home. The court may also impose various exceptions and conditions on the order.

If you apply for a Safety Order, the court cannot grant a Barring Order. You may, of course, apply for both orders and, if you do, then the Court will decide which, if any, to grant.

In general, a Safety Order granted by the District Court may last for up to 5 years and is renewable. Orders granted by the Circuit Court may be unlimited in duration.

Who may apply for a Safety Order?

Safety Orders are more widely available than other orders. The following people may apply for a Safety Order:

• a spouse may apply for an order against the other spouse (again, this includes former spouses)
• a cohabitee may apply for an order against the other cohabitee if they have lived together as husband and wife for at least 6 months in total during the 12 months before the application
• a parent may apply for an order against an adult child who is not a dependant of the parent (i.e. a child who is over the age of 18 unless the child has a physical or mental disability such as to make him/her incapable of living independently of the parent)
• any adult against another person with whom he/she lives in a relationship which is not primarily contractual.

This last category is meant to include most other domestic relationships but to exclude relationships such as that between landlord and tenant.

Application by Health Board

The Health Board may apply for orders in certain cases. In order for the Health Board to apply for an order, the victim must be a person who would be entitled to apply for such an order - they must be eligible to apply for a Barring or Safety Order in their own right. The Health Board may apply for a Barring order or a Safety Order in the following circumstances:

1. if the Health Board becomes aware of an incident or incidents which suggest that the safety or welfare of the victim may be at risk
2. if there is reasonable cause to believe that the victim has been subjected to molestation, violence or threatened violence or otherwise put in fear of her/his safety or welfare
3. if the Board is of the opinion that the victim or parent of a child victim would be deterred by the violence etc. from pursuing an application for an order
4. if the Board considers it appropriate to apply having taken into account the wishes of the victim or the parent of a child victim.

Conditions (1) and (2) do not have to be met if the victim is a child and the Board has reasonable cause to believe that he/she is being assaulted, sexually abused or seriously neglected or his/her health, development or welfare has been or is likely to be impaired or seriously neglected. In these circumstances the Board could, of course, take proceedings under the Child Care Act instead.

If the question of a Safety Order or a Barring Order arises where the victim is a child, (whether the issue is raised by the victim's parent or the Health Board) the Court may ask the Health Board to look into the question of whether or not an order - such as a Care Order or a Supervision Order - under the Child Care Act would be more appropriate.

Enforcement

When any of the above orders is made, copies are given to the parties concerned and to the Gardai in the area where the victim lives. If the victim is a child, the Health Board is also given a copy. It is an offence to contravene an order.

Gardai have powers of arrest without warrant if they suspect breaches of any of the orders. They also have powers of arrest and to force entry into a premises if there is no order but if they suspect that an assault has taken place.

Injunctions

The domestic violence legislation applies to people in specific relationships. If you are living with an abusive person and your situation is not covered by the legislation, you may apply for an injunction. An injunction is an order preventing a person from doing something - for example, it could order a person not to engage in violent conduct - or ordering the person to do something - for example, to leave the home. In practice, this remedy is rarely used as the costs involved may be considerable and an order to leave the house is unlikely to be granted if the person concerned is the owner.

Assistance in cases of domestic violence

There are a number of voluntary organisations which assist people who are victims of domestic violence. There are also refuges which are run either voluntarily or by the health board or the two together. You should check with your local Health Board and/or Citizens Information Centre about what services are available locally.

Medical Card Income Guidelines

The income guidelines for the issue of medical cards were increased from 1 January 2003. Since 1 July 2001, everyone over the age of 70 is entitled to a medical card without a means test.

The revised guidelines are outlined below and they replace those given in previous issues of Relate. The guidelines are just that - they are not absolute limits. Under the Health Acts you are entitled to what is called "full eligibility" for the health services if, in the opinion of the Chief Executive Officer of the Health Board, you are unable, without undue hardship, to arrange GP, medical and surgical services for yourself and your dependants. In practice, the Chief Executive Officers of Health Boards, in consultation with the Department of Health and Children, draw up income guidelines each year. You would normally get a medical card if your income is below the guideline. However, the guideline figures are not absolute. It is generally difficult to get a medical card if your income is above the guidelines but you should apply if you or your dependants have exceptional medical expenses. A medical card is evidence that you have "full eligibility" for the health services.

Medical Card Income Guidelines January 2003

Single Person Living Alone	Single Person Living with Family	Married Couple
Up to 66 years	€138.00	€123.00	€200.00
66 - 69 years	€151.00	€130.00	€224.00
70 - 79 years	€447.50
80 years or over	€471.00

Allowance for child aged under 16: €25
Allowance for other dependants: €26

Income is gross income less PRSI contributions. Two other expenses are taken into account:

Rent/Mortgage

If your rent or mortgage costs over €25 a week then the excess is deducted from your income. Generally, nursing home fees are treated in the same way as rent or mortgage.

Travelling Expenses

The amount over €22 which it costs you to get to work is also deducted.

Planning and Development (Amendment) Bill, 2002

This Bill proposes a number of amendments to the Planning and Development Act, 2000 and to other housing legislation. Its main aim is to provide for alternative options in respect of the social housing supply provisions of the 2000 Act. (see Relate, October 2001 for details)

The original Act provides for the drawing up of housing strategies by local authorities. These strategies are required to provide that up to 20% of the land available for housing be used for social or affordable housing. In order to implement the social housing quota, the planning authority has the power to attach a condition to a planning permission to require a developer to enter into an agreement to transfer the land in question to the planning authority. The developer is generally paid compensation at the existing use value of the land, rather than the market value. Once it has acquired the land, the planning authority may provide itself or arrange for the provision of houses on the land, make sites available on the land for people requiring social or affordable housing, or make the land available to a voluntary housing association. These provisions originally did not apply to sites of 0.2 hectares or less but the new proposal reduces this to 0.1 hectares. In exceptional circumstances, the local authority may require a financial contribution from the developer instead of the transfer of land - any such contribution must be used for the provision of affordable housing.

The new Act sets out other ways in which the developer may comply with the social housing requirements. Instead of the options outlined above, the developer may reach an agreement to reserve land or provide houses or sites at another location, or to make a payment to the local authority which will be used for the provision of social and affordable housing, or to agree to a combination of any of these options. Any of these options must involve an equivalent monetary value to the original options.

When deciding whether or not to make such an agreement, the local authority has to consider its contribution towards achieving the objectives of the housing strategy, its resources and the financial implications of an agreement towards its housing budget, the need to counteract undue social segregation in the area, the provisions of the development plan and how quickly housing is likely to be provided as a consequence of the agreement.

The Bill also deals with housing planning permissions for which a shorter duration than usual was included in the 2000 Act. It allows them to continue in existence for the normal period, subject to a levy and this levy may not be passed on to the purchaser.

Social Housing - Correction

In the December 2002 issue of Relate, we described the various social housing options available.

Under the heading "Voluntary housing" , the rental subsidy scheme is no longer called that - it is now known as the Capital Loan and Subsidy scheme. At least 75% of the houses must be let to people who are on the local authority housing list. There is no specific income limit as stated.

The telephone number of the National Association of Building Co-operatives is (01) 661 2877. It is the national body for the co-operative housing movement.

Directory of National Voluntary Organisations and Other Agencies

Comhairle will shortly be updating its Directory of National Voluntary Organisations and Other Agencies.

This Directory is a comprehensive listing of over 500 voluntary organisations in Ireland and related public agencies with descriptions, contact details, publications, email and web addresses. It is available in print and on the Comhairle website.

We will be contacting directly those national organisations who are in the current edition, and will also place advertisements for entries in the national press.

If you wish to be included in the directory contact Comhairle at 605 9000 or email directory@comhairle.ie.