David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael)
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To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government the consideration that has been given to introducing a tenant purchase scheme for long-term approved voluntary housing body tenants similar to that available for local authority housing tenants; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [54209/12]

Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour)
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The Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act, 2009, introduced a new approach to the sale of social housing whereby social housing tenants, including tenants of approved housing bodies, could acquire new local authority houses and existing apartments under the Incremental Purchase Scheme (IPS). The details of this scheme are available on my Department’s website www.environ.ie.

There is no provision at present for the purchase of individual houses by tenants of approved housing bodies. My Department is currently in consultation with the approved housing body sector regarding the development of an enabling regulatory framework to support the expanded role for the sector as envisaged in the Government’s 2011 Housing Policy Statement. I expect that this framework will provide support and assurance both to the sector itself and to its external partners and will underline its status as a viable and attractive investment opportunity for financial institutions. In conjunction with the development of this framework, my Department will examine a range of issues around the long-term financing of the sector. How best to use the equity accrued in approved housing body housing stock to, for instance, leverage additional new supply will be considered; the sale of existing stock to tenants is one of a range of options in this regard.