Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

The Minister of State indicated that people were put on notice in 2010. I was not a Member of the House at that stage. The Minister of State has still not indicated why there is a time lag. The tenant purchase scheme was successful. As as been pointed out, giving people the right to buy their own local authority homes is obviously very good for them but in general it is also good for local authority areas because it gives those to whom I refer a stake in those areas. This is a positive, win-win situation. I do not, therefore, really understand the reason for the delay. If one were suspicious one might think that the Government is trying to wind down matters in respect of social housing altogether. I say this particularly against a background of there being no social housing programme, where the waiting times on the housing lists in my area are stretching out to ten or 12 years, where the only people who seem to be able to obtain houses are those who are given overall medical or some other form of priority and where normal applicants in places such as Dún Laoghaire are no longer being housed. Will the Minister of State explain the delay in bringing forward the legislation to create a new scheme? The old scheme was a success and there is no need for a break between the two.

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