Jack Chambers (Dublin West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I am very pleased that my party colleague, Deputy Barry Cowen, has brought this important issue before the House and I am happy to speak on this Bill. Housing, as we all know, is probably the most important issue facing us at the moment. I wish the Minister well in what is a very big challenge and the plan he announced yesterday. It is important because it is an issue we all face every day in our constituency offices. Moreover, the issue of whether tenants should be allowed to purchase their own homes is becoming more widespread. If accepted, this Bill will give all tenants in local-authority-owned social homes the opportunity to buy their homes. It will give tenants in local authority homes acquired under Part V schemes the right to apply to own their own homes. This is something that people across the country want, but are deprived of doing. If people were given a Part V house, why should they be excluded because they happened to get what is now an unfortunate or unlucky allocation? We should fill that legal lacuna and grant these people an opportunity to buy their own homes. Over the past 13 years, acquisitions of social and affordable housing units under Part V amounted to almost 16,000. The majority of purchases were of affordable housing units, while social housing units accounted for 38%, including acquisitions by the approved housing bodies.

The Bill before us today will affect some 4,000 households. The rule that prevents people from purchasing their homes is a result of the new tenant purchase scheme that was introduced in January 2016 and replaced the 2012 scheme. Those in Part V schemes were unfairly excluded. Fianna Fáil believes this is a senseless bureaucratic restriction that needs to be overhauled. The idea behind this restriction is to ensure residential communities remain as mixed-tenure developments, but this does not appear to be in keeping with the aim of the scheme. Indeed, the tenant purchase scheme as it stands discriminates against lower-income households in these mixed communities by stating that it is only the right of higher-income households in mixed communities to have an opportunity to own their own homes. This is fundamentally wrong and unfair.

All Deputies in this House will agree that communities work best when people take pride in their community and locality. People are stronger when they have a place to call their own and have the opportunity to buy their own homes. Local authority tenants are an important aspect of this. For this reason, primarily, Deputies from all parties and none should support this Bill. Critics of tenant purchase schemes claim that they deplete housing stock, but the evidence shows that this is not the case. If tenant purchase schemes are operated properly and prudently, they can actually add to the housing stock. The length of tenure in a council-owned social home usually covers the entire life cycle of the household tenants. Once a family is allocated to a local authority home, it usually stays in that home until the couple or single person heading that household dies. Indeed, it is relatively rare for tenants living alone in three- and four-bedroom houses, for instance, to apply to be placed on the social housing transfer list. Furthermore, it is neither feasible nor right to encourage or force older people whose children have moved out and are living alone in two-, three- and four-bedroom council houses onto a transfer list. In my constituency, people have been restricted in this way under the current tenant purchase scheme. This is not to do with the Bill being proposed here, but there are people who want to buy their own homes who might be in a four-bedroom house but because only three bedrooms are being used the council excludes that family from purchasing their own home. There are many underlying issues in addition to what we are speaking about today which are unfair and discriminatory, including on age. If adults have moved out of a house and other family members are still working and want to purchase their own home, they should have the opportunity to do so if they can. That has to be considered in the context of the legislation introduced previously in addition to the amendment we are proposing today. Council tenants usually occupy their social homes for a period of anywhere between ten and 40 years. During this period, in practice the occupied home is taken out of the social housing stock. Whereas voluntary or co-operative housing bodies use social housing stock with existing tenants as collateral to borrow private finances, local authorities do not do this. Therefore, far from depleting the social housing stock in an area, the sale of local authority homes via tenant purchase schemes actually provides an opportunity to replenish and enhance the public housing stock.

There are other cases, such as one I saw last week, of families who received an adaptation grant for a person with a disability but have since been excluded by the council from purchasing their homes on the basis that the council wants to retain housing stock that has been upgraded through adaptation grants. The Department and the Minister need to consider why the adaptation grant is not being progressed for new housing stock tenants who cannot get the adaptation grants they want and are trying to progress. That is extremely unfair. People are being excluded on the basis of age and the natural progression of families, or because someone in the family has a disability. That is wrong.

This measure was introduced in Statutory Instrument 485 of 2015. It is punitive and unfair and it sends the wrong message. For a Government that has introduced a Minister with responsibility for disability, who sits at the Cabinet table, to exclude people with a disability from purchasing their home is wrong, unfair and needs to be reviewed, together with the issue of age discrimination and so on.

As has been mentioned, only 73 applications have been made via the new scheme. It needs to be overhauled. It has not worked and I hope the Minister reviews it.

Ultimately, the pathways to home ownership should not be the preserve of the private market. This Bill will allow thousands of families to realise their dream of home ownership.

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