Dublin City Council is to allow tenants in its apartment complexes to buy out their homes at discounted prices, in a move that could raise billions of euro for the Exchequer.
The scheme - the first time the council's flats will be offered for sale to tenants - is to begin this summer with the sale of homes in the Weaver Court complex in the Liberties.
Some 36 tenants in Weaver Court are to be offered their homes at about 30 per cent below market value. Current market value is roughly €200,000 for a two or three bedroom unit.
The sale is being seen as a pilot project for similar schemes across the council's current stock of 16,500 flats. These have an estimated market value of €3.3 billion.
Dublin City Council also owns about 10,000 houses and their tenants have the right to buy out their homes. The entire housing stock, valued at €200,000 per house or flat, would bring the total market value of the city council's homes to about €5.3 billion.
At a discount to the tenants of 30 per cent, the housing stock would still represent a windfall for the State of about €3.7 billion.
However, the city council is keen to point out that the sale of all its housing stock is not a realistic prospect. It also pointed out that any money raised would go back to a central Exchequer housing fund.
Speaking to The Irish Times yesterday, the council's assistant manager, Mr Brendan Kenny, said: "There was an anomaly in that housing tenants were allowed to buy out their homes while the council kept ownership of the large-scale flats complexes. That clearly was not fair."
Mr Kenny said the proposed scheme was a way of empowering tenants to take control of their homes.
Mr Kenny said the council would "always be in the business" of ensuring that homes were provided for those who could not afford the market conditions. However, it may not be as a landlord. A number of co-operative models with housing agencies were being examined, he said.