Noel Grealish (Galway West, Independent)
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543. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government the reason the income of an elderly person is taken into consideration when the discount under the tenant purchase scheme is being calculated in view of the fact that this person cannot purchase the house in their own right; the timeframe for when the report on the review of the tenant purchase scheme will be released; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [51168/17]

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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The Tenant (Incremental) Purchase Scheme came into operation on 1 January 2016.The Scheme is open to eligible tenants, including joint tenants, of local authority houses that are available for sale under the Scheme. To be eligible, tenants must meet certain criteria, including having a minimum reckonable income of €15,000 per annum and having been in receipt of social housing support for at least one year.

The minimum reckonable income for eligibility under the scheme is determined by the relevant housing authority in accordance with the detailed provisions of the Ministerial Direction issued under Sections 24(3) and (4) of the 2014 Act. In the determination of the minimum reckonable income, housing authorities can include income from a number of different sources and classes, such as from employment, private pensions, maintenance payments and certain social welfare payments, including pensions, where the social welfare payment is secondary to employment income. In determining reckonable income, the income of all tenants of the house, including adult children that are joint tenants is included, as is the income of the spouse, civil partner or other partner/co-habitant of a tenant who lives in the house with them, thus ensuring the appropriate level of discount is applied to the purchase price.

In order to ensure the sustainability of the scheme, it is essential that an applicant’s income is of a long-term and sustainable nature. This is necessary to ensure that the tenant purchasing the house is in a financial position, as the owner, to maintain and insure the property for the duration of the charged period, in compliance with the conditions of the order transferring the ownership of, and responsibility for, the house from the local authority to the tenant.

The terms of the Scheme involve discounts of 40%, 50% or 60% off the purchase price of the house, linked to the tenant’s reckonable annual income. On the sale of a house under the Scheme, the local authority will place an incremental purchase charge on the house equivalent to the discount granted to the tenant. Generally, the charge withers away over a period of 20, 25 or 30 years depending on the level of discount involved, as set out in the following table.

The review is now complete and a full report setting out findings and recommendations has been prepared. I expect to be in a position to publish the outcome of the review shortly.