Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

There are two slots left to complete the rota, my own and Senator Seery Kearney's. That will bring us up to 4.57 p.m., ahead of our 5 o'clock meeting with the approved housing bodies. You might have three minutes, Deputy Gould. I will try to squeeze you in if I can between Senator Seery Kearney and me, but I remind Members that we will have the organisations housing older people before us at 5 p.m.

The point Deputy Ó Broin made about the changes to the fair deal scheme is interesting. There are the financial changes, but some of the reasons people are put off by or resistant to it are emotional, some are about their connections to their home and some are about not yet being ready to think about that home as not being the family home. Some of the reasons are logistical and relate to the practicalities of renting the home, dealing with the tax return and all those issues. Deputy Ó Broin makes a valid point that while the changes to the fair deal scheme are crucial, local authorities could play a role in trying to support the transition or the administration around it. They could do that in a way that supports that delivery.

The financial contribution scheme I spoke about earlier is another one of the factors many people raise with me. People come to me with houses worth €300,000 and tell me they want to participate in the local authority financial contribution scheme, whereby they give 40% of the value of the house to the council and then move into a one-bedroom home that they might have to wait some time for. I often say to them that that is €120,000 they will have to give to the local authority and that they might be better buying an apartment on the open market and not giving that €120,000 to the council. Often the main reason they say they want to go down the route of the financial contribution scheme is that they do not want to have to engage with a solicitor or an auctioneer and do not want to put the house up for sale. We should consider that. The benefit of the financial contribution scheme is not just the financial element of it or the access to great public housing that is our senior citizen schemes; it is also the transition and the process of the transition. For both those schemes, I would like the Department to consider the management of the hassle, if I may put it in those terms, and how we can make them simpler.

We talk about the huge demand for senior citizen schemes when they arise. When communities see them being built, there is lots of interest and they ask whether they are eligible. Many people are not eligible for senior citizen accommodation. I was joking with Deputy Ó Broin earlier about age criteria. Many people are really surprised to learn that they qualify. Others do not qualify or their financial circumstances put them beyond the eligibility criteria. It is amazing that the market has not responded by providing senior citizen accommodation similar to that provided by local authorities in respect of both density and owner occupation. I am taken aback that the market has not provided those types of schemes whereby they may get more density and more numbers and may make more profit. They may be more viable, yet the market has not responded. Has the Department examined the reasons the market has not responded? We see in other countries that there is more senior citizen-type accommodation or accommodation marketed as senior citizen accommodation. It may look very similar to an apartment complex but it is marketed as a senior citizen complex or there might be covenants that make it such a complex. Has the Department looked at why the Irish market has not responded in the way other countries have by providing for owners who want to sell in order to downsize and why it has not provided those types of sheltered communities that could be sold?