THERE IS NO clarity on a stalled homebuyers scheme used to prevent homelessness in Housing Minister James Browne’s constituency.

Wexford County Council has repeatedly declined to provide any information on the scheme to The Journal, despite almost all other local authorities doing the same in recent weeks.

The Tenant in Situ scheme allows renters to stay in their privately rented home even if the landlord decides to sell, with the council or the Housing Agency stepping in to buy the property from the landlord.

It had been credited with preventing homelessness for hundreds of families before changes to its funding model saw numerous local authorities put the scheme on hold due to uncertainty over whether it could buy more houses.

According to figures provided to The Journal last month, just over half of Ireland’s 31 local authorities have paused the scheme or are set to halt it imminently.

It has left hundreds of households facing uncertainty as they wait to find out whether their local authority has received government funding to resume talks with their landlord.

While almost every council responded to questions from The Journal for that survey, the minister’s hometown council has not – despite being first contacted on 15 July.

Each council was asked whether it was still operating the Tenant in Situ scheme or if it had paused the scheme. They were also asked to outline how many houses were purchased by the scheme while it was available and how many potential purchases had been put on hold due to the stalled government funding.

People close to the minister insisted he had no role to play in the council failing to release the data.

The government has sought to push blame onto councils over how the Tenant in Situ scheme has been handled as it has repeatedly insisted funding is available for the scheme.

It did this again this week when it said that “sufficient funding remains available” from the original €325m allocation to help complete around 850 acquisitions this year, as part of a Department of Housing press statement on new funding for housing schemes.

However, several councils disputed this claim in on the record statements to The Journal. They stressed that they have “exhausted” or “paused” the funding for the scheme because they have either committed their budget or have spent it on preventing families from ending up out of the street.

Generally, many mainly urban councils – where homelessness is often worst – had halted the programme as they said they were oversubscribed and had run out of funding. (You’ll find more details on which councils are keeping the scheme and which aren’t in this piece)

Social Democrats housing spokesperson Rory Hearne told The Journal that no council should be withholding information on the programme.

“Frankly it feels a little bit more than a coincidence that the council in the Housing Minister’s backyard is somehow not releasing this information,” the Dublin North-West TD said.

“It’s disgraceful really the way this scheme has been treated, it was working at saving people from homelessness but it has been impeded by this government.”

Local councillor John O’Dwyer said the programme was paused in Wexford “almost immediately” after funding was halted by the Department of Housing earlier this year.

“I think the council should really be able to confirm this information easily enough, especially when the Housing Minister is from Wexford,” O’Dwyer told The Journal.