Pat Breen (Clare, Fine Gael)
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Question 1422: To ask the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government his views regarding the rent to buy scheme as introduced by Fingal County Council to sell unsold affordable housing; if there are any plans to roll-out this scheme to all local authorities nationwide; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [32069/10]

John Gormley (Dublin South East, Green Party)
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Very considerable progress has been made on both the sale of affordable housing and the deployment of unsold affordable homes for other purposes, including temporary use under the social leasing or RAS schemes. While the sale of the affordable units on hand remains the preferred outcome, local authorities have available to them a range of options to bring these units into use and are supported in this regard by my Department and the Housing and Sustainable Communities Agency.

I have no immediate plans to introduce a general rent-to-buy scheme across all local authorities because I do not believe such a scheme is needed in areas where there are only very small numbers of unsold units on hand. However, Dublin City Council, following approval by my Department, has recently launched a pilot scheme of "Rent to Buy" for a number of unsold affordable homes in three developments in Dublin City. I have asked Dublin City Council to prepare and submit a report on the operation of the pilot before the end of this year. This pilot will be reviewed before deciding whether it is appropriate to make such a scheme available in any other local authorities where there are significant numbers of unsold affordable homes.