The Uneven Geography of Housing Allowance Claims in Ireland: administrative, financial and social implications

This article employs administrative data on claimants of rent supplement—theprincipal housing allowance for private renting households in the Republic of Ireland—toexamine spatial variations in the numbers of claimants, the cost of this benefit and the characteristicsof claimant households both within and between different regions. It reveals that thesespatial variations illuminate some of the reasons for the unexpectedly high growth in both thenumbers of claimants and the cost of rent supplement over the last decade. This geographicalanalysis casts doubts on several of the key supposed benefits of using housing allowances,rather than capital grant aid for social housing provision, to cater for the accommodationneeds of low-income households. It reveals that, due to uneven claimant geography, the costsof the former are just as difficult to control as the latter. Moreover, housing allowances do notnecessarily afford claimants greater consumer choice. As a result of funding constraints anddiscrimination by landlords their locational choices are severely constrained which in turnmeans that the socio-spatial segregation associated with housing allowances is as significantas that effected by social housing provision.