A record high number of Clare households exited Housing Assistance Payment tenancies last year.
The scheme was introduced in 2014 to alleviate pressure on local authority social housing lists.
Tenants availing of HAP receive a monthly rent supplement for private sector properties while they await an offer of social housing.
The latest figures from the Central Statistics Office show that a record 270 households exited the scheme here in 2022.
However just four in ten exits across the country were due to an offer of social housing and 3.8% of tenants exiting in Clare were recorded as having “no income the following year”.
The average wait time for HAP tenants in Clare to receive a social house is now five years, while those on the social housing list were waiting an average of 217 days before they received their first housing assistance payment.
The monthly limit here ranges from €220 for one adult in shared accommodation to €550 for a single parent or couple with between one and three children.
However when a household cannot source a property in that price range, Clare County Council has the flexibility to go 35% above the allotted threshold and to allow a single person to avail of couples rates.
At the end of 2022, there were 1,430 HAP tenants in this county, 34% of which were single adults, while a further 21% involved single parents with children.
