purchase scheme which came into force at the beginning of the year has been roundly criticised by members of Mayo County Council. A number of changes have been introduced with the main ones being that the scheme will only apply to new build homes from now on only for new tenants, and that existing tenants can have only a two year window to purchase their current homes. Once that two year period is over, if they want to get involved in the scheme they will have to move to a new build home, which may be nowhere near where they currently live.
“This is crazy and should be thrown out and started again, the people who come up with these plans have no idea about rural Ireland at all,” said Fine Gael councillor Joe Mellet.
Independent Ballina councillor Gerry Ginty commented: “It’s putting a gun to the head of the tenants.”
There was wide cross-party condemnation of the scheme with calls for it to be rejected. County manager Peter Hynes, reported that the council’s hands were tied. “It’s a national scheme, it’s for us to operate, we can’t reject it, we can only operate it”, he said.
Cllr Gerry Ginty added: “It looks like they don’t want any more social houses to be built - a reaction to their developer friends being left with an oversupply of houses that the Department wants the council to lease from them for 10 years. It’s not going to let the tenants get a foothold in the market, it’s the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer, it’s to rescue the people who rescued the political parties before.”
Fine Gael councillor Gerry Coyle said the scheme could severely affect people who live in social housing in rural areas. “There is no oversupply of houses in Carratigue or Doohoma. What’s going to happen there if someone can’t buy their house in the two years, are you going to move them to Ballina or Castlebar or Westport? ”
Achill based Fianna Fáil Cllr Mícheál McNamara added: “It’s not good enough that our own existing customers after 2012 will not be able to buy out their houses, this should not be allowed to happen.”
