Michael Fitzmaurice (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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1796. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government the reason there is a €15,000 income stipulation from employment in the tenant purchase scheme for social housing (details supplied); and if he will make a statement on the matter. [1434/18]

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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The Tenant (Incremental) Purchase Scheme came into operation on 1 January 2016 and a review of the Scheme will be published shortly.  The current 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.

It was for reasons of ensuring the sustainability of the scheme, that the minimum income was introduced.  This was in order to demonstrate an applicant had an income of a long-term and sustainable nature, 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 operation of the first year of the scheme has been the subject of a review and I expect to publish the outcome of that review shortly.