Michelle Mulherin (Mayo, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

950. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government his plans to enable tenants of voluntary and social housing organistions to purchase and own their own homes; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [38337/13]

Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

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 avail able 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 has been 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 . In July 2013 I published Building for the Future, a Voluntary Regulation Code for Approved Housing Bodies in Ireland which has been developed by my Department to provide a framework within which statutory regulation of the AHB sector will be pursued. This will provide support and assurance both to the sector itself and to its external partners as it takes on the expanded role envisaged in my Department’s housing policy statement. The Code will assist housing bodies to improve their governance, management and financial capabilities and will facilitate better oversight of the AHB sector. 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.