Tenant purchase and vacant houses
Senator Davitt raised concerns about the reintroduced tenant purchase scheme and then argued that vacant council houses should be sold to first-time buyers so they can be refurbished and occupied. The Chair noted there were no seconds, and the issue continued as the same matter.
I welcome Deputy Grealish and his friends and colleagues to the Gallery. My colleague, Senator Crowe, who is from the same constituency, has already spoken; he will hardly get an opportunity to welcome them so I will do so on his behalf.
The reintroduced tenant purchase scheme is long overdue, but I have encountered a problem. Perhaps some of the clerical officers dealing with it are not fully aware of the implications or of the relevant legislation, or perhaps I have it wrong. My understanding is that someone buys a property and there is a clawback. There always had been a clawback, but now it will be over 30 years at 2%. If a 60-year-old bought a house and, God forbid, died at 70 years of age or had to sell it for some particular reason, there would be a 20-year clawback. At 2% per year, that would amount to 40% of the house’s value when the person bought it. This is a serious issue and seems to be an impediment to the scheme. We should look into it. Perhaps we could invite the Minister to the House for a debate on the tenant purchase scheme, which was shelved for a long time. Every Senator has dealt with people who are on the waiting list to buy their own homes. The scheme has only been reintroduced and there are already a couple of glitches in it. If possible, inviting the Minister to discuss the scheme and thrash the points out a bit more would be worthwhile.
Secondly, I read something in the newspaper today that surprised me. Dublin County Council-----
Comment on this
It is on the same matter. Dublin County Council does not have enough money to complete the refurbishment of vacant houses and give them to new tenants. The same is happening in some other counties, which is evident to anyone travelling through the countryside. Why do councils not give first-time buyers an opportunity to buy those houses? People could fit them out to their own standards, spend whatever money they wanted and refurbish them gradually, as all of us did when starting out. To leave houses idle during a housing crisis is not good enough. Sell them to people, even if those people are on the councils’ housing lists. That is well worth doing. The Deputy Leader might speak to the Minister and revert to me.