Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I am conscious of the difficulties faced by distressed home owners, particularly, as Deputy Durkan has said, those involved in the shared ownership scheme. The Deputy spoke of the rental part of the agreement being different to what was originally understood. Many Deputies have brought this issue, and the difficulties people are having, to my attention. We will examine the matter to see what can be done. The difficulty is that local authorities borrowed the money initially through the Housing Finance Agency and we do not wish to impoverish them, but at the same time we wish to deal sympathetically with the difficulties those who have taken out loans are experiencing.

We are seeking to provide a fund and are working in conjunction with the local authority managers to see what we can do to address the existing financial arrangements, in view of the difficulties local authorities face with bad debts, etc, that arise, in turn, from the difficulties householders experience.

At this stage, we do not have a definite answer to the specific issue Deputy Durkan raised about people in shared ownership but we are conscious it is a real problem for people. It has been brought to my attention. I thank Deputy Durkan for raising this.

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