Ciarán Lynch (Cork South Central, Labour)

The Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government is fully aware that local authority tenants are treated differently according to the type of accommodation they occupy. A local authority tenant living in a house is able to engage in a tenant purchase scheme. Unfortunately, tenants who live in apartments have been prohibited for the past ten years from doing the same. During the lifetime of the previous Government, the legislative framework was promised but the delay in introducing it has meant that thousands of tenants across the country have been denied the right to buy their own homes. I raise this matter on the Adjournment to encourage some urgency on the part of the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government in ensuring the anomaly is corrected.

For the past ten years, county and city managers have been ready to implement the scheme and there are no difficulties at local authority level. The legal difficulties to which the Minister referred when I questioned him on the issue in October were resolved as long ago as 2005, when a working group comprising Cork and Dublin city councils resolved legal difficulties such as sinking funds, freeholds and title holds and management companies. It is therefore disingenuous of the Minister to claim these problems are currently before the Attorney General.

The Minister's predecessor gave a commitment that the legislative framework would be put in place by 2005 at the latest. That has not happened. During the period from 1997 to 2007 in areas of my constituency such as Ballyphehan, Togher and Greenmount, and throughout the city, the price of property has increased by300%, interest rates have climbed and the age profile of those who wish to buy their homes has grown older. This has resulted in a situation in which many of those who have been denied to right to buy their homes no longer qualify for a mortgage because of the 20 year minimum mortgage period. People cannot buy their homes because of Government failure and delay.

Can a specific date be provided as to when the legislative framework will be put in place? The Minister has referred to the Social Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill as the means of resolving the matter. Can a ministerial order be passed to fast track this specific part of the legislation?

People all over Europe purchase their apartments and have done so for more than 100 years, yet it seems to be a major problem for local authority tenants in Ireland. One must ask where the priorities of this Government lie. We have seen tax incentives and major changes in planning legislation to facilitate developers in building houses and apartments but legislation to correct an obvious anomaly has been delayed from one Government to the next. The last commitment we were given was that the matter would be addressed by last summer. Given that the Minister's predecessor indicated in 2005 that the issue would be finalised during the lifetime of the last Government, it is unacceptable that we are approaching 2008 with the matter still outstanding. Unfortunately, the Government's track record leaves me with little confidence that a solution will be in place by this time next year.

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