Brian Ó Domhnaill (Fianna Fail)

I move amendment No. 2:

In page 6, subsection (2), between lines 2 and 3, to insert the following:

"(f) homes purchased under the Affordable Housing scheme;

(g) homes on which stamp duty has been paid from January 1st 2004 up unto December 31st 2011;

(h) homes purchased through the Shared Ownership Scheme.".

The amendment relates to the definitions set out in section 2. Its purpose is to have a number of categories of home included in the definition of properties which may exempt under the household charge legislation. While I appreciate it may have been preferable to submit the amendment to the section relating to exemptions, given the specific nature of the types of properties provided for in the amendment and the ownership pertaining to these types of properties, we concluded that section 2 would be the more relevant section to make the amendment because it includes the definition of residential property.

The amendment proposes to have homes purchased under the affordable housing scheme and homes on which stamp duty was paid from 1 January 2004 up to the present day included in the subsection. These are the households experiencing most of the burden of mortgage difficulties. The issue of negative equity also arises and is addressed in later amendments. Anyone who bought or built a property from early 2004 onwards did so on the basis that credit was widely available. Having paid stamp duty, they are not in negative equity. I can cite examples of people who purchased properties for €400,000 and €500,000 and paid stamp duty of between €25,000 and €30,000. People in this category are in major financial difficulty and should be exempt from the household charge. In addition, homes purchased through the local authority shared ownership scheme should be exempt from the charge and should not be defined as residential property in this section.

People purchased properties under the affordable housing scheme because local authorities allowed them to access money at a reduced cost on the basis that they could not afford housing on the open market. The three categories of housing referred to in the amendment should be exempt from the household charge and should be defined as non-residential for the purposes of the section. We are willing to accept an amendment under the exemption clause on Committee Stage or Report Stage if the Minister is willing to accept such an amendment.