Joanna Tuffy (Dublin Mid West, Labour)
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Question 239: To ask the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government if his attention has been drawn to the fact that a council (details supplied) has written to tenants advising them that the tenant purchase sales scheme introduced in 1995 will cease on 13 June 2012; if his attention has further been drawn to the adverse effect that this will have on tenants who assumed they would be able to avail of the scheme in the future, that tenants, some of whom are tenants for more than ten years and may have invested in the property by improvements and so on, should not be disadvantaged in this way; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [12465/11]

Willie Penrose (Longford-Westmeath, Labour)
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A new tenant purchase scheme under the provisions of section 90 of the Housing Act, 1966, the 2011 Tenant Purchase Scheme, was introduced recently to allow local authority tenants to avail of a discount of 3% per year of reckonable tenancy, up to a maximum discount of 45%, on the market price of a house they are eligible to purchase under the scheme. This scheme applies only to tenants of 10 years standing or longer and will be open for applications only until the end of this year, 2011. Tenants of over 10 years who are interested in purchasing their local authority rented house should, therefore, take advantage of this scheme and, if eligible, apply to purchase their house before the scheme expires.

The new scheme does not replace the existing 1995 Tenant Purchase Scheme, which remains in place for tenants with up to 10 years tenancy and provides for a maximum discount of 30%. However, as announced in June 2010, it remains the intention that the tenant purchase arrangements will be wound down in 2012 to be replaced by a new scheme based on the incremental purchase model. My Department therefore recently reminded housing authorities to inform all existing tenants of houses of the decision to end the tenant purchase scheme in 2012 so that they have sufficient time to apply to purchase their home under the existing scheme if they so wish.