The present tenant purchase scheme is totally unworkable. I am sure the Taoiseach is aware that Kerry County Council wrote to the Department in 2015 stating that 80% of applicants would not qualify. Before the scheme was suspended four or five years before that, the local authority when it sold a house to the tenant then used that money directly to repair vacant houses and make them suitable for housing new tenants.

The councils do not have funding from the tenant purchase scheme available to them anymore because the scheme is not working. Approximately 80% of applicants for the scheme do not qualify. What is the Government going to do about this very serious matter? I ask the Taoiseach to investigate the matter. Kerry County Council wrote to the Government about this issue more than 18 months ago.

I am sure the Minister will be very interested in what Deputy Danny Healy-Rae has said about the assessment of Kerry County Council that 80% of applicants would not qualify.

It is the same all over the country.

The Deputy is aware of the unprecedented scale of the housing programme being put in place by the Government for the building of social housing as well as the purchase by county councils of housing for tenants. Funding is also being made available to renovate houses that are not up to standard and make them fit for purpose.

I will inform the Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government, Deputy Simon Coveney, of the Deputy's comments in respect of non-qualification for the tenant purchase scheme. That scheme used to work very well years ago. When a person got a house from a council he or she was given the opportunity once every five or ten years to sign up to buy the house. A previous Minister sold off all of the houses for very low fees and put an end to that.

He was trying to give people a chance to own their own home.

We will see what the best option is now.