Vol. 417 No. 6
6 Mr. J. Mitchell asked the Minister for the Environment the total number of local authority houses in (a) Dublin city, (b) Dublin county and (c) the rest of the country, which have been sold to the tenants since the first tenant purchase scheme; and the total number of houses in each area which remain tenancy houses.
Information about the number of houses purchased under all tenant purchase schemes is not readily available in the Department. However, details of the number of dwellings sold annually by authorities during the period 1970-89 have been included in the Housing Statistics Bulletin for the final quarter of each year. Some details for earlier years are given in the Department's annual reports for those years.
In 1990, sales in the areas mentioned by the Deputy were 1,943,747 and 2,910, respectively. At the end of 1990, dwellings in the ownership of the authorities in the areas involved totalled 34,775, 7,893 and 53,658, respectively.
In view of the extremely high administration costs for tenancy dwellings and the very high maintenance costs, which have been the subject of exchanges in this House over the past number of months, may I ask the Minister if he has any plans to introduce a further tenant purchase scheme to facilitate the sale of more houses to tenants?
As far as I can recall, the total amount provided by my Department for maintenance is approximately £65 million and the rental income is approximately £46 million. There is no doubt that there is a substantial cost in that area. I agree with the Deputy that one has to look seriously at this issue in the overall context. One option is to contemplate a new house purchase scheme. I am not ruling out this option but it is too early yet to make any decision about it. In the context of his earlier questions the Deputy devoted much of his time to the need to clear up the position in regard to the previous scheme. There is still a great number of outstanding applicants to that scheme who have yet to be served. Local authorities need to concentrate their available resources on solving these problems as well as getting involved in the mix of new arrangements proposed under the new housing programme. Therefore, I do not propose to introduce a new scheme in the near future.
I ask the Minister to ensure that when such a scheme is introduced it is not a sale of the century.
Will the Minister not take some special steps to clear the backlog from the 1988 scheme? Most of the backlog is due to technical problems either in flats or houses. A large number of people who were not in a position to purchase their houses or flats in 1988 because of unemployment, their economic circumstances or tenancy factors are now in a position to do so and would like to do so. I ask the Minister to try to bring in a scheme later this year.
I do not want to give any further commitments in this regard beyond saying I have certain concerns about the existing scheme. I should like the remaining applications in the existing scheme to be completed before making any decision in regard to the introduction of a new scheme.
We must now proceed to other questions.
