Vol. 509 No. 5
134 Mr. Higgins (Dublin West) asked the Minister for the Environment and Local Government if he will bring forward a scheme whereby people on low incomes or on social welfare payments would be able to purchase their homes under the local authority tenant purchase scheme suitably modified in view of the fact that the market value of local authority houses has escalated dramatically. [20920/99]
Local authorities must assess each application for tenant purchase on its merits, having regard, for example, to the tenants' ability to meet the repayments and other expenses involved such as insurance and ongoing maintenance. Authorities have been advised that no particular category of tenant, e.g. those on social welfare payments, should be regarded as being automatically excluded from purchase. A shared ownership option is available to tenants whereby they would be required to make a minimum initial purchase of 50 per cent of the purchase price of the house with an undertaking to acquire the remaining equity within 25 years. I have no plans to make any amendments to the tenant purchase scheme.
