Colm Burke (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I realise the Minister of State has had a long day and apologise, therefore, for detaining him so late in the evening. A large number of people in local authority housing wish to purchase their home, but there is no scheme in place to allow them to do so. In many cases, tenants have been living in the same property for a long time but there is no private housing available in the area. There are several advantages to introducing a scheme to allow such persons to purchase their home from the local authority. First, it will provide moneys for councils. Second, the people who purchase their homes will expend money in refurbishing them. Third, there is a significant social benefit in having a mix of private and local authority housing in an estate in terms of ensuring stable communities and so on. I have seen this happen with older estates in Cork city which were built as local authority housing but have now largely passed into private ownership.

Under the previous scheme regulations, tenants who purchased their home from a local authority and wished to sell it within 25 years had to secure the consent of the local authority to do so. An additional requirement was that the person to whom the former tenant was selling must be in need of housing. I have no difficulty with these regulations being retained. The time has come to give serious consideration to introducing a scheme that will allow local authority tenants to purchase the homes they have occupied for lengthy periods. People in those circumstances want to continue to live and work in the area they call home.