Patrick O'Donovan (Limerick, Fine Gael)
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764. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government when statutory instruments will be made, setting a commencement date for the introduction of the new scheme for the tenant purchase of existing local authority houses along incremental purchase lines, as provided for in Part 3 of the Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2014; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [13959/15]

Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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777. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government when the incremental tenant purchase scheme for existing local authority dwellings will be operational; the details of the scheme; the way it will affect existing local authority dwellings; when regulations outlining the new scheme will be published; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [14144/15]

Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 764 and 777 together.

The Government’s Social Housing Strategy 2020includes a commitment to make, in the second quarter of 2015, the Regulations necessary to introduce a new tenant purchase scheme for existing local authority houses under Part 3 of the Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2014.

The scheme will operate along the lines of the incremental purchase model currently operating for local authority apartments and certain new local authority houses, which involves discounts for purchasers linked to household income and a discount-related charge on the property that reduces to nil over a period, unless the house is resold or the purchaser fails to comply with conditions of the sale. Where the tenant purchaser resells the property before the end of the charge period, he or she will be required to pay back to the housing authority a portion of any profits arising from the sale, thereby compensating the State for its loss on the original sale of the property and generating funds for the local authority to invest in new social housing or the refurbishment of existing housing.