Eamon Scanlon (Sligo-Leitrim, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Ordinary people can no longer afford to own their own homes. I have spoken many times on the tenant purchase scheme. I thank Deputy Darragh O'Brien, Fianna Fáil spokesperson on housing, for the opportunity to do so again. The tenant purchase scheme was first established by Fianna Fáil. Opening a pathway to home ownership is at the heart of Fianna Fáil policy. The right to buy under the tenant purchase scheme has been an important tool in extending home ownership opportunities to low income households but the requirements to qualify for the scheme are too strict for many people on social welfare and the elderly and must be changed.

People whose name was previously on the title of a property such as a family home, a parent's home, or a home from a previous relationship that was sold following a divorce or a bank forcing the sale and who are now in a new relationship and seek to purchase a house from a local authority are being restricted from doing so. Although the local authority will agree to sell them a house, it will not lend them money for the purchase because such people previously had their name on another property. They are told to get a loan from a bank. However, when such people go to the bank, the bank will not lend to them because of the incremental purchase charge the local authority puts on the house. That is causing much hardship. I have discussed such a case of which I am aware with the Minister.

Elderly people who wish to purchase their house under the tenant purchase scheme but cannot show an annual income of €15,000 are excluded from being allowed to do so even though many have been in their house for 30 or 40 years. Such people may be in their 70s or 80s and retired. Those houses will not come back into the housing stock because in many cases family members live with the elderly person and the house is transferred to the son or daughter or other person living there. It is very unfair that those elderly people are being discriminated against because they do not have an annual earned income of at least €15,000.

I previously raised the issue of a housing development in Lucan on which 178 houses are being built. The site is owned by NAMA, which has done a deal with the developer such that NAMA gets paid as the houses are built and sold. I have no issue with that. However, rather than being sold to people struggling to purchase a home for themselves, every house in the estate has been sold to a vulture fund. People are queueing outside the finished houses to rent them for €2,200 per month. If that continues, what chance will any young couple or family have of ever purchasing a house in Dublin city? That is the situation across the city, not just in Lucan, and should not be allowed, particularly on land owned by NAMA.

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