asked the Minister for the Environment if he will amend the regulations pertaining to house loans whereby the tenants of local authority houses who have opted to purchase their houses could be considered for house loans from the local authority on the understanding that they would surrender the houses or repay the outstanding moneys to the local authority should they sell them.

A tenant of a local authority house who opts to purchase that house, but later agrees to surrender the house to the local authority which provided it, may qualify for a special category local authority loan of up to £18,000 for the purpose of acquiring a private house.

The ordinary local authority house purchase loan scheme is, however, restricted to first-time purchasers and an applicant who purchased and subsequently sold his local authority house does not, therefore, qualify for such a loan. While I have no immediate proposals to amend the loan scheme to allow such applicants to avail of local authority loans, I am keeping the matter under continuing review.

I did not hear fully the Minister's reply. It appears that there is one small section of the community which finds itself in the position of being refused a loan by a local authority since the housing purchase scheme. Why should this amendment cause any problem in the Department, as there is no loss either to the Department or the local authority? Very few people would be affected.

Hear, hear.

If the Deputy will give me details of the problems, I will have a look at them and take the matter up with the Deputy.

The Deputy is training them in.

18.