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Public private leasing arrangements: an effective response to the rapid growth in rentsupplement claims?

In 2004 a public private leasing arrangement, the Rental accommodation Scheme, was introduced into the housing system of the Republic of Ireland. Lauded as a more structured, accommodation-based approach to the use of the private rented sector to meet long-term housing need, the Scheme was designed as a means of eliminating dependence on temporary income support payments. However over the last ten years expenditure on the rent supplement scheme has increased fivefold while long term dependency on temporary income supports remains an acute housing policy concern. As a result the effectiveness of the Rental Accommodation Scheme has come in for robust criticism. Yet while the Scheme has encountered a number of operational difficulties the Irish Government remains committed to hybrid leasing arrangements as a long term policy instrument. This paper considers the extent to which this hybrid leasing arrangement offers an effective and sustainable housing policy intervention, particularly in light of the onset of the economic recession. The paper begins by explaining the position the Rental Accommodation Scheme within the broader Irish housing system before describing the Scheme’s design and structure. The paper goes on to examine the various difficulties which the scheme has encountered to date before considering the role which regulatory oversight of the hybrid scheme as set out in the Residential Tenancies Act 2004 may play in the coming years.