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

I cannot accept these amendments because they duplicate an existing enactment in the Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2009. Section 13 of the 2009 Act provides that capital moneys accruing to a housing authority from a number of sources, including the sale of a dwelling under the old tenant purchase scheme provided by the 1966 Act, or the two incremental purchase schemes provided for in the 2009 Act, will be ring-fenced in a separate account and, "subject to the prior approval of the Minister, may be used for the provision of housing or for the refurbishment or maintenance of existing housing, or any other related purposes." Furthermore, section 32(a) of this Bill amends section 13 of the 2009 Act to provide that money accruing from the sale of a dwelling under Part 3 of the Bill will also be subject to the provisions of section 13.
For similar reasons, I cannot accept amendment No. 21, which proposes to insert a new subsection 1A into section 44 of the Act of 2009. It would appear to be an attempt to extend the incremental purchase arrangements for newly built local authority houses, as provided for in Part 3 of the 2009 Act, to existing local authority housing. The proposed amendment is unnecessary as it is already encompassed by the provision in Part 3 of the Bill underpinning a purchase scheme for existing dwellings along incremental purchase lines.
Section 13 of the 2009 Act states:

Any moneys accruing to a housing authority from(a) the sale of a dwelling owned ...
(b) the resale of a dwelling ...

The list continues, and at the end it reads "... shall be accounted for by the housing authority in a separate account and, subject to the prior approval of the Minister, may be used for the provision of housing or for the refurbishment or maintenance of existing housing, or any other related purposes." It is in that sense that I say the provision already exists.