Brian Stanley (Laois-Offaly, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

A person should have the right to purchase his or her house after a period of time and sell it to someone who wants to be an owner-occupier. However, houses that were built by the taxpayer should not be sold and within a couple of years be in the hands of a private landlord. Then the taxpayer is paying a rent supplement to the tenant in that house. The public purse is being hit twice. I am in favour of rent allowance and people being able to buy their local authority house. I support tenant purchase schemes, but there should be a clause whereby houses that are provided under a social housing scheme and subsequently sold cannot be purchased by a landlord and rented out with the taxpayer then having to cough up again to pay rent allowance to a social tenant. There are many such examples.

In Laois it was stopped because I highlighted it. That local authority introduced a 20-year rule whereby a house purchased in the previous 20 years from the local authority could not be rented out. When I first raised it at a council meeting, it was nearly devoured. However, it is quickly seen that in local authority estates landlords were coming in and buying social housing to rent back to people who are on rent allowance.