Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The shared ownership scheme has been an ongoing difficulty and I asked the Housing Agency to research how we might address it. It has come back with an interim report and we have issued a circular. There is more work to be done because it does not address all of the particular difficulties which arise under shared ownership. An issue which has been addressed is people on shared ownership can now apply for the mortgage arrears resolution process available to local authority tenants as well as private mortgagees.

They can apply under the mortgage to rent scheme as well, which means they return to being renters. However, I acknowledge further work must be done on the shared ownership scheme.

Deputy Stanley raised the issue of the Midlands Simon Community, which I addressed earlier. The funding for homelessness is the same this year as last year. There is a regional forum, which makes decisions, and we will maintain contact with the forum in this regard.

With regard to the housing grants, I refer to the way we are allocating the money this year. The funding has increased from €35 million to more than €38 million. The base we are using is last year's allocation and on top of that we will weight the additional money on the basis of the over 65s population. In other words, the elderly population as well as the general population are taken into account in the additional amount allocated to each local authority.