Barry Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

What are the rules of engagement with regard to the mechanisms by which a landlord can increase the rent? When one applies it to local authority tenants in approved housing bodies, they have their own mechanisms under which rent may be increased, as Deputy Coppinger has said. I hope and expect that there is no overlap or legal issue with this. The Minister of State has said that the provisions within the Residential Tenancies Act will be applicable in the context of it being enforceable for tenants of approved housing bodies but there are means, methods and formulas by which rent is increased or decreased, whatever the case may be, in whatever circumstances, for which local authorities have the wherewithal within existing laws.

In recent weeks, having done away with the tenant purchase scheme in 2012 it was reinstated. A new scheme has been put in place, which I welcomed at the committee meeting last week. I further welcome the fact that the funds derived from each local authority can be reinvested by that same local authority. Has the Minister of State consulted with housing agencies and associations on applying a similar scheme to those housing units? Unfortunately, it is applicants to local authorities who are assigned these units and they do not have the same rights as local authority tenants will have when they are more than a year into a tenancy agreement. That is something that I and others have been calling for over the last number of years. I would have thought that at this stage there would have been ample time for the Government, the Minister and the Minister of State to engage with those authorities with a view to coming up with a scheme that offers those people the same opportunity as others to own their own home, take advantage of the scheme that is in place and the discounts that would be applicable, and also generate activity in local authorities for funds to be raised to be reinvested in housing.

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