Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I have a growing concern about the delivery of affordable housing units. I get information on LIHAF, local infrastructure housing activation fund, the €25 million fund and the new proposal around an equity share from the Minister through parliamentary questions. How many units will be delivered and at what price for both this and next year? I am looking for an answer to those two simple questions every time I frame a parliamentary question on this issue. I am sure the departmental staff pull their hair out when they see my questions because it is a lot of work. However, I am not getting the answer to those two simple questions. Will the Minister either answer these questions or admit he cannot answer them at this point and indicate when he can? When I say prices, I do not mean an answer such as less than €320,000. I have given bands and I am going to keep on coming back. I prefer not to waste the Department's time with freedom of information requests. However, this reluctance to give us this information makes me all the more nervous about the delivery of affordable housing.

On the land initiative, the Minister knows the Sinn Féin Party does not like this model of delivery. In good faith, however, we have engaged constructively with the two local authorities involved, in the absence of direct state funding for large-scale public housing developments. Our councillors in the two local authorities in question are increasingly concerned that there will be no genuinely affordable units in these schemes. Our difficulty is that it is going to be a red line for us come the final approval of which lands have to be disposed. We are not looking to play politics with it but, again, we cannot get answers from managers on the number of units and the actual cost of units which could be affordable even at a general level. I hope the Minister will shed some light on this.

I would more than welcome the opportunity to outline some suggestions for the affordable loan scheme criteria. If that was possible to do before the scheme was finalised, we would make ourselves available. Notwithstanding the criticisms I have made, if one has affordable supply, the affordable loan scheme could be valuable. In the absence of affordable supply, my criticisms still stand.