Ballymun - where supplement does not apply

Ballymun has become the only part of the State where rent supplement will not be granted.

Following an order from the Minister for Social and Family Affairs, Ms Coughlan, rent supplement may no longer be granted to applicants who are hoping to live in the Ballymun Regeneration Area.

In a letter to Ms Maureen Windle, chief executive of the Northern Area Health Board, dated May 24th, Ms Coughlan directs that an arrangement be put in place whereby "payment of the rent supplement in the Ballymun Regeneration Area does not conflict with the housing strategy for that area".

"I... hereby direct the Northern Area Health Board not to pay supplementary welfare allowance rent supplement in respect of accommodation located within the area delineated on the attached map without the prior agreement of the housing authority [i.e. Dublin City Council] for that area."

In the letter she says she is making the directive following requests from the Minister for Housing, Mr Noel Ahern, and the North West Area Committee of Dublin City Council.

Mr Des Stone, of IMPACT, the union representing community welfare officers, said although Dublin City Council allowed the supplement to be paid to new applicants in the Ballymun Regeneration Area in the first days of the directive, "not one has been allowed since" that period.

He said applicants who have been refused include people who have lived, until now, in Ballymun all their lives.

Mr Stone, a community welfare officer in Ballymun, said the term "social engineering" was one he had heard used to describe this scheme. He described as "frightening" the fact that council employees could decide where people were allowed to live.

Mr Ahern told The Irish Times the reasoning behind the directive was "to ensure the regeneration of Ballymun worked", and that a social mix was achieved.

Up to €2 billion of public and private money was being invested in the regeneration, he said. This included about 2,000 units of private housing.

"If all 2,000 units were used to house social welfare tenants there would be a danger of there being a bigger social welfare dependent population there than is there now.

"This policy is not written in stone, and will be monitored on a regular basis by the council. It is just to give the regeneration a chance to click in and work."

A spokesman for the Northern Area Health Board said the board operated the rent allowance scheme "on an agency basis" for the Minister for Social and Family Affairs.

"She makes the policy and we implement it."