John Cummins (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Okay. I will move from the vacants on to the cost-rental homes. We have touched on some of the viability issues. In terms of activating the build-to-rent scheme, there are a significant portion of permissions in place at the moment on which the market is not delivering and does not have any intention of delivering. I have said over many months that there is huge potential there to be able to activate units that were never intended to be in the cost-rental space. The issue as I see it, however, is that the cost of building, financing and maintaining those developments over a 30- or 40-year period equals market rent at the moment. In fact, it probably equals more than market rent in many cases. It does not equal market rent minus 25%. The only thing that will change the dial in that space is a subsidy. There has to be a subsidy that is available to make that rent a more affordable rent. I appreciate that there are probably state aid issues attached to that. One thing I would say with regard to state aid is that it does not come into play if everyone has access to the same subsidy. I know there has been resistance from the Department that cost rental would not be opened beyond the AHBs, the LDA and the local authorities so far because we were proving concept. To take what Ms Timmons said, however, there is no doubt that the concept has already been proven at this point. The legislation does permit and allow for low-return funds to be able to access the delivery of cost-rental units but it just has not been commenced yet. While the LDA will engage on some of those sites and the AHBs will engage on some more, and local authorities to a lesser extent, the ability of the private sector to be able to engage with their peers to be able to activate and deliver those in a quicker fashion is something that really has to be part of the process the Department is examining at the moment. If that subsidy to lower the market rent to at least 25% below market rent is available to all players, it overcomes the state aid issue that exists. I ask Ms Timmons to seriously take that on board.

The issue on viability for local authorities is that the subsidy through the affordable housing fund is simply not enough. Am I right in saying it has now been increased to €150,000, but that is only specific to high-density developments in city centres? Is that correct?