Richard O'Donoghue (Limerick County, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I would welcome if there is someone present who can answer it. There are many people who have worked all their lives and been in the local authority rental system who want to buy the home they have been in for the past 30 or 40 years when they get to a certain age and, for example, they have been paid redundancy.

Some of them want to leave their home to their children so that they can get a start in life in the more rural areas, and remain within the town, village or area in which they have lived. Some of the local authority houses are actually not in towns or villages, but are in rural areas. The people in these areas want to buy them. However, the constraints are that when someone is over 65 years of age and is of pensionable age, his or her income is not taken into account and that person must be working to buy the property. That is disgraceful and should be changed.