Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank both Senators again, and I understand the issue they have raised. Senator Casey, in particular, took me through a number of specific examples of a constituency impacted by this. I followed up on the issue and examined it to see what could be done. In the case of the interaction with the local authority affordable purchase scheme, it was more straightforward because that is a statutory scheme and did not involve any other parties that had to be consulted and whose agreement had to be provided. The first home scheme is a non-statutory scheme. There are a number of parties involved in it. I will continue to examine it and I suggest it is an area where perhaps the joint committee on housing could, as the Senator suggested, bring in the relevant parties to tease out the detail of it and understand the different perspectives available on the issue. For my part I will continue to examine it. We have made the change where it was more straightforward in the case of the local authority affordable purchase scheme. It was, unfortunately, not possible in the case of the interaction with the first home scheme because there are a number of different stakeholders involved in that particular scheme.