Willie Penrose (Longford-Westmeath, Labour)
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Question 91: To ask the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government the progress made towards the introduction of a rent to buy scheme for unsold affordable housing; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [37434/10]

Michael Finneran (Roscommon-South Leitrim, Fianna Fail)
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In the early part of 2009 local authorities had an estimated 3,700 unsold affordable housing units on hands. 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. As of now, there are approximately 640 affordable units available for sale or transfer. While the sale of these units remains the preferred outcome, local authorities continue to have available to them a range of options to bring these units into effective 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. End of Take