Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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183. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government if he will indicate which sales of former local authority houses, now freehold, continue to be purchased by investors; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [16100/15]

Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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Under section 90(12)(a) of the Housing Act 1966, a person who bought a house from a local authority under a tenant purchase scheme must obtain the authority’s consent to re-sell the house within a specified period after tenant purchase (20 years in the case of the 1995 Tenant Purchase Scheme). The enactment empowers the housing authority to refuse to consent to the resale of the house where

- the intended purchaser is not in need of housing,

- the intended purchaser is, or has been, involved in anti-social behaviour, or the intended sale would not be in the interest of good estate management, or

- the sale would leave the seller, or any person who might reasonably be expected to reside with them, without adequate housing.

It is a matter for individual housing authorities to deal with applications for consent to the resale of tenant purchased houses; information about the incidence of such applications or the circumstances in which authorities give consent to resales in particular cases, is not available in my Department.