Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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389. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government when a new tenant purchase scheme will become operational; the way the discount on the market value of the property will be calculated; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [24312/14]

Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour)
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The Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2014, for which Report and Final Stages will be taken in the Dáil tomorrow, will, among other things, underpin a new tenant purchase scheme to replace the 1995 scheme for existing local authority houses, which closed for new applications at the end of 2012. The new scheme will be broadly similar to the two incremental purchase schemes currently in operation, relating to newly-built local authority houses and local authority apartments, respectively.

I expect that the Bill will be enacted by the summer, following which I will prescribe the commencement date and the detailed terms of the scheme. I intend to relate the purchase price of the house to its market value with replacement cost also being taken into account. The Bill provides for discounts on the purchase price linked to tenant income , in the same way as the existing incremental purchase schemes.