A charity has said the private rental market is driving homelessness after it found a 22% decrease in the number of houses available under the Housing Assistance Payments (HAP) scheme, writes Adam Van Eekeren.

According to the quarterly 'Locked Out Of The Market' report from the Simon Communities of Ireland (SCI), only 3% of properties surveyed across 16 areas were available to rent by HAP tenants.

The report looked at tenancies listed on Daft.ie in 16 areas, and found there were nine fewer homes eligible for the scheme than in March of this year. This leaves just 32 homes available for HAP.

Of those 32 properties, only ten were outside Dublin. This has left HAP tenants in areas such as Athlone, Limerick and Cork scrambling for accommodation.

Ber Grogan, executive director at SCI, claimed the scheme is leaving “entire counties without a single option”, adding: “People entitled to housing support are being pushed further into homelessness and essentially left behind.”

She said “the rental market is failing those most in need", adding that the figures should act as "a wake up-call for policymakers”.

Sinn Féin housing spokesman Eoin Ó Broin said the Government needs to focus on increasing social housing supply, saying: “Rather than increasing the rates for HAP, we should be decreasing the amount of people reliant on HAP”.

He said the Government needs to “increase and accelerate” social housing and called for a minimum threeyear ban on rent increases.

A Department of Housing spokesman said Housing Minister James Browne “has recently approved the commencement of a review of existing HAP rent limits”.