Brian Stanley (Laois-Offaly, Sinn Fein)
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863. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government when a new tenant purchase scheme will be introduced. [11137/15]

Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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867. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government if a revised tenant purchase scheme will be made available to local authority tenants, and owners of shared ownership mortgages; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [11179/15]

Paudie Coffey (Waterford, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 863 and 867 together.

Part 3 of the Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2014 provides for a new scheme for the tenant purchase of existing local authority houses along incremental purchase lines. The Government's Social Housing Strategy 2020includes a commitment to introduce the new tenant purchase scheme by the second quarter of 2015. Full details of the new scheme will be set out in Regulations that will be made in advance of its introduction.

Under the Act, the Scheme will be open to local authority tenants who have been in receipt of social housing support for a prescribed period of at least one year. The scheme does not provide for tenant purchase by way of shared ownership, nor will it be available to the owners of shared ownership mortgages who part purchased their dwellings under either the 1995 Tenant Purchase Scheme or affordable housing schemes.