Batt O'Keeffe (Cork North West, Fianna Fail)

The local authority tenant purchase scheme was first introduced on a national basis in 1973 and the scheme in its current form has been in operation since 1995. The current scheme allows tenants who have been resident in a local authority house for a minimum period of one year to apply to their local authority to either purchase the dwelling outright or acquire it by way of shared ownership. Initial eligibility for the scheme is also subject to purchasers not being in rent arrears.

Certain categories of dwellings, including older persons dwellings, maisonettes and flats or apartments, are excluded from the scheme. Local authorities also reserve the right to exclude certain houses from the scheme's remit for reasons of good estate management, structural condition or on the basis of proposals to carry out restorative work to the dwelling.

The Government's statement on housing policy, Delivering Homes, Sustaining Communities, published in February 2007, indicated that reforms are needed to the existing tenant purchase model to implement a more cost effective and equitable system, including the introduction of a scheme for the sale of local authority apartments to tenants under certain conditions and revised terms.

A social housing miscellaneous provisions Bill, currently being drafted, is expected to be published in early 2008. Work on addressing the complex legal issues relating to the tenant purchase of local authority apartments is being advanced in that context.

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