Paudie Coffey (Waterford, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputies for raising these issues. When Government is drafting legislation, it takes advice from the Office of the Attorney General on the wording. I recognise Deputy Coppinger's attempt is a genuine one to strengthen tenancy protection in terms of who is qualified for social housing support, which the Deputy's amendment phrases as "having" qualified for social housing support. The amendments that Government drafted were drafted to ensure conformity with the wording of the Housing Acts in respect of qualification for social housing support. I have been strongly advised that the current draft uses the correct wording and achieves the policy objectives. I do not propose to accept the Opposition amendments for that reason.

In this legislation, the Government is not proposing anything that changes the local authority tenant relationship. As the Deputy will know, the local authorities operate their own differential rent schemes. There is no attempt to interfere or change that in any way. We have ensured that the legislation makes clear, as I have already outlined, the tenancy landlord relationship between tenants and the approved housing bodies.

That leads to Deputy Cowen's next question which is an old chestnut. Can a tenant purchase scheme similar to that being introduced for local authorities be introduced for approved housing bodies? The information I have is that the approved housing bodies are organisations that are approved under section 6 of the Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1992 to provide social housing support in conjunction with local authorities. Under the terms of the various capital funding schemes, approved housing bodies are the de factoowners of the properties and are required to make them available for social renting for the duration of the mortgage or, as the case may be, the availability agreement. My Department cannot unilaterally make provision for their sale to tenants. Any such decision would have to involve the AHBs by agreement and have regard to the mortgage on their property. On expiry of the mortgage period and subject to compliance with the terms of the funding agreement, the AHB becomes the owner of the property. That is an important point to note. There are currently no proposals or plans for a tenant purchase scheme for the existing AHB housing schemes.

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