Tenant purchase scheme access
Deputies Michael Healy-Rae and Michael Moynihan argued the tenant purchase scheme excludes many retirees, unemployed people and those on disability payments, and should be amended to allow genuine purchasers with family support. The Taoiseach said he would ask the Minister to reply and cautioned against reducing social housing stock too far.
I am raising the important issue of the tenant purchase scheme. After it was introduced, we were delighted that it was there, but it is not fit for purpose, especially for those who are retired, unemployed, or on disability payments. Some 80% of tenants in the country are debarred from the scheme. It is crazy, inoperable and it does not help the people who we would want to be able to purchase their homes.
They have been in these houses for many years and want to purchase them, but they are debarred from doing so because of the rules and the restrictive nature of the scheme. I thank the Taoiseach for introducing it, but will he, please, alter it to make it more usable for tenants in local authority houses?
Comment on this
On the same issue, Deputy Michael Healy Rae is absolutely correct. The scheme is showing up some anomalies, whereby people who have been living in those houses for many years and who, through various mechanisms, including family support provisions, are in a position to buy them are not allowed to do so. They deserve the opportunity to buy them for themselves and their families. The scheme should be looked at to accommodate those with a genuine reason to be in a position, with the provision of family support, to buy those houses.
Comment on this
As I am not familiar with all of the details of the scheme, I will ask the Minister, Deputy Eoghan Murphy, to correspond with the Deputies directly. One thing we always have to bear in mind when it comes to the matter of tenant purchase is that in the past we sold off much of the social housing stock and that we are in the process of building up the stock of public or social housing again. We need to have regard to this when it comes to the matter of tenant purchase in order that we do not end up in a situation where tenants purchase what used to be public houses and then sell them on to somebody else and the net effect will be a reduction in the social housing stock. This is something we must bear in mind from a public policy point of view.