Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

But €451,000 is what is being delivered. The Minister will probably mention cost rental. A recent example of cost rental properties near my area is as follows. A two-bedroom property was €1,445 per month and a three-bedroom property was €1,550 per month. In all of these cases, if you have two incomes in the household you might have a chance, although average earnings are €40,000 in this country so for the average house price, even two combined incomes will not be able to afford the cost the market is delivering in housing. However, in cost rental it will not deliver for single-income households because single-income households cannot afford €1,400 or €1,500 per month for a two or three-bedroom rental property. The housing assistance payment, HAP, thresholds are also too high. The homeless HAP threshold is €1,950 per month. Average rents in Dublin are €2,100 per month and if you are actually looking for something to rent it will be more like €2,500.

At every level people cannot afford it. They cannot afford to buy, they cannot afford cost rental in many cases and they cannot find a HAP tenancy that is within the thresholds. What do we need to do to be constructive? The Minister needs to recognise that the market is not capable of delivering for 70% to 80% of workers and therefore the State has to deliver 70% to 80% of what is being built as social and affordable housing. Can this be done? It is done in Vienna. We can do it if we decide to scale up the social and affordable housing targets, establish a State construction company, and in the short term, instead of the vulture funds buying properties, we must buy up what is being delivered in order to deliver social and affordable housing on scale.

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